Progress

March 28, 2011

Today was a busy day working with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Ohio Department of Development. First we made contact with a representative from Blanchard Valley Health Systems, Abbey Hartman, to discuss fiscal sponsorship and the use of their auditorium for community meetings. We're still waiting on a response back. Next we made contact with the Columbus division of HUD who directed us to to the the office of Housing and Community Development through the Ohio Department of Development. Patrick Hart is the representative for our region and he provided us with the information of how their organization operates, gave us more information about our own community resources and got us in contact with the director at Hope House, where a lot of partnership will take place with this project. He also helped clear up some confusion on how we can become a legal non-profit organization before obtaining a building. This is good news because we can now move forward with this project as an organization rather than seeking sponsorship to become an organization.

Basically we will not work directly with HUD, we will work with the the Office of Housing and Community Development through the Ohio Department of Development who will handle all grant applications. Any financial assistance we seek in grants will have to be certified and sent in by our county's Continuum of Care, which is Hope House. We tried getting in contact with Hope House's director, Sammie Rhodes, but she was unfortunately out of the office today. We did gather some information from the person who was in the office and have a general idea of their services and programs they offer through the community.

Tommorrow we will hopefully know more information regarding Hope House. We are also anticipating talking with the Findlay Hancock County Community Foundation about available grants in our Community. Our agenda for the rest of the week involves getting in contact with other organizations in the community such as Hancock County Bridges Out of Poverty and the Hancock County Board of Alcohol, Drug Addiction & Mental Health Services to see which services we can incorporate into our project.

Again, I would like to thank everyone for their support. As we move forward with this project the pieces of the puzzle will slowly fit together and as a community we will soon be able to help all of our homeless utilizing the services our county has to offer through one organization built specifically for the homeless.

Sincerely,
Rob McClelland, Founder