Family Promise's FLASH Program helping house families

SPOKANE, Wash. - Spokane mayor Lisa Brown has said she wants to transition from a mass shelter system to a smaller site, or scattered, system to address the city's homeless problem. But the City of Spokane Valley is already seeing success with a scattered system in a pilot program run by Family Promise.

It's called the FLASH Program, which stands for Fast Leasing and Sustainable Housing.

Joe and Anna George, along with their three young kids, live in FLASH Program housing in Spokane. Their two older kids both have special needs, which is a lot for a young family to manage. And one day, not long ago, the Georges were left homeless.

"We lost our home due to bills and just falling behind in bills," Anna George explained. "And I was so sick with seizures, so my husband took time off of work."

With nowhere to go, they ended up at Family Promise's emergency shelter. But they needed a place of their own, so they pushed to enter the FLASH Program. Family Promise CEO Joe Ader says the pilot program is funded by the City of Spokane Valley and is meant to be an alternative to typical shelters.

"It's designed around can we prevent as many families as possible from becoming homeless as we can? And then also, how quickly can we get a family that is experiencing homelessness rehoused?"

Ader says the flash program has been extremely successful so far. It had hoped to serve 80 people from 25 families. But since it started in October, it's served 205 people from 52 families.

"Not only are we getting people housed faster, but it's far less expensive than the traditional mass shelter model," said Ader. "And we are preventing additional trauma from children in the family from experiencing long-term homelessness with it."

COVID forced Family Promise to experiment with these smaller site locations, but they're now committed to them because of the results they've seen.

"95% of families that were staying at the smaller site were getting into housing of their own, as compared to our emergency shelter, which was closer to 40%," said Ader. "So a massive difference with that."

And for people worried about scattered shelters popping up in their neighborhood, Ader says there's no statistical evidence of any type of increase in crime or negative impact on the neighborhoods they're in.

For the George family, having their own place because of the FLASH Program, and a case manager to help with any problems, has meant everything.

"Just not sleeping on a mat on the floor anymore and having a roof over our heads. Being able to have our own space. It's just been amazing."

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