VALLEY MISSION INC

Valley Mission is one of the central community agencies in our locality that works daily to break the continued generational cycles of poverty that are evidenced in our community. During each phase of our local Community Needs Assessment, factors demonstrate that housing remains a barrier to independence in our community in addition to transportation, mental health treatment, and other behavioral health concerns. Valley Mission addresses these barriers in our Case Management and Mental Health Programs.

Despite overall decreasing rates of unemployment for fiscal year 2019, the numbers of homeless continued to rise in our shelter, and the locality demonstrated a higher than state average of adults without higher education, adults with severe mental illness, adults who are dying of substance abuse related diseases, and adults who are ignoring chronic/major health issues. Our most recent Community Needs Assessment indicated the top three service request areas for Staunton, Augusta, and Waynesboro were: utilities; housing and shelter; and health care. These are basic, fundamental needs that families must address in order to become self-sufficient. There is simply no reason why our community should continue to fail to address these fundamental requirements.

Valley Mission exists to fulfill immediate physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that our clients can then become healthy enough to focus on obtaining and maintaining safe and affordable housing. In terms of temporary housing, we offer dorm style rooms for women and men in addition to nine family rooms that allow those with children the privacy they need. Our dining program provides three meals a day Monday- Friday and brunch and dinner on Saturdays and Sundays. We are also a community soup kitchen--no one is turned away at meal time. In fact, last calendar year our shelter served more than 57,000 meals to our residents and the local needy. In addition to regular meals, we supply food boxes to the community on an as needed basis, and provided 180 boxes to our community this past year.

Our most vulnerable clients, the children, receive additional services. We provide an after-school program Monday through Thursday each week that is facilitated by retired teachers and a paid coordinator. In this loving and transitional environment, children receive snacks, help with their homework, and socialization. This program provides continuous education and uses strategies such as positive reinforcement, structured study, and a creative project/craft each day to foster success.

Spiritual guidance is a fundamental cornerstone for emotional healing. Chapel services are offered twice a week along with a Celebrate Recovery program that meets once a week. During each non-denominational service, our clients are encouraged to share their stories or simply sit in quiet meditation. They are not mandated to participate. Throughout the week our chapel also serves as a space for both AA and NA to meet on our campus.

Our primary strategy for ensuring that our clients become independent is to provide them with the tools that they need for future success. These tools are refined during both our Case Management and Mental Health Programs. We have a licensed clinical social worker who meets with our clients to provide them with the emotional support that they need to address underlying issues that have contributed to homelessness. Valley Mission also has two full time case managers who assist our clients with employment, social services applications, obtaining vital documents, and most importantly, procuring safe, affordable, and appropriate housing.

In summary, Valley Mission utilizes a multidisciplinary, holistic approach to our clients' wellness in order to help them in moving forward with their individual goals. Their success is ultimately our success.

Our organization operates solely to the benefit of our clients and their achievement. We are flexible in our approaches to their needs, conducting regular surveys and adjusting programming to meet the most prevalent needs at any given time. While these needs tend to fluctuate based on client demographics, they also fluctuate based on community availability of resources.

Specifically, we meet our goals in the following ways:

* Employing 39 paid staff to operate our homeless shelter twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. These paid staff also operate our two thrift stores. Those two stores provide more than 50% of our operating income each year so that our clients receive the services and consumable goods that they need.

*Applying for and receiving yearly grants that focus on the Case Management and Mental Health Programs as well as the payment of our primary location utilities so that vital incoming revenue can be focused more intentionally on client needs such as initial housing support, payment of legal fees, and funding for payment for obtaining vital documents, which are necessary in order to complete employment/housing paperwork.

*Collaborating with local community partners to maximize housing resources and funding for our clients so that each of our local homeless has the maximum amount of support necessary to achieve their goals once they exit our shelter.

*Recruiting and retaining volunteers in an effort to provide onsite enrichment courses for our clients, free of charge. Maximizing volunteer usage also allows us to divert additional funding to client needs and increasing our staffing talent.

*Educating our community about people experiencing homelessness and the stigma associated with this temporary situation. This stigma has become even more pronounced during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

At the end of calendar year 2019, we served (onsite) the highest number of clients we had ever served, 703. While that was disappointing in terms of those clients who were unable to obtain housing, it was encouraging in terms of our ability to increase our capacity for service. Some of these clients were from outside of our immediate geographic area and sought us out as opposed to other shelters because of our reputation for service. This makes us very proud!

In terms of specific accomplishments as related to the above goals, the below demonstrates some of the highlights from our last year's CAPSAW (Community Action Program of Staunton Augusta Waynesboro) final report of the Fiscal Year 2019 Grant Cycle:

It is apparent when reviewing our CAPSAW Outcomes Progress for 2019 that the employment services offered this year have greatly assisted our clients with obtaining and maintaining employment, particularly in the sense that 91/60 (152%) obtained employment while living in our homeless shelter. Additional outcomes which were positively affected included: maintaining employment for 90 days (90%), job referrals (110%), job skills training (94%), résumé development (93%), interview skills training (400%), and number of individuals increasing their savings (95%).

One of our primary accomplishments came to light during one of our client surveys--90% of the clients living at Valley Mission felt that our shelter was helping them achieve their personal goals. In addition, we received very favorable comments from the clients including the following: “Overall my opinion of staff is very high—impressed as highly trained and professional.” “I thank God for Valley Mission and the staff.”

In terms of what is next, we plan to tackle the challenges to the future of housing in our community now that unemployment has risen due to the global pandemic. We know that while challenge is something we and our clients are accustomed to, this is not the case for everyone. We strive to be a beacon in our community for how to provide comprehensive, compassionate service during challenging times while continuing to hold others (and ourselves) accountable for actions and consequences of those actions.