A Place to Call Home

Move-in day at Ruth Williams House at the Gene & Marlene Epstein Building, Project HOME’s brand-new permanent housing facility. Rashawn is accompanied by Project HOME Residential staff as they take the elevator to the third floor. They arrive at Room 408, to find the door decorated with a large ribbon and bow, like a package ready to be opened. Filled with a mixture of excitement, amazement, and even some fear, Rashawn opened the door and entered the spacious, furnished efficiency apartment (complete with a gift basket of household supplies). After a stunned silence, the tears flowed, followed by hugs. “This is really my home!” Rashawn repeated several times.

It’s an increasingly familiar scene – but always powerful and moving. After many years of welcoming people home, we could make the case: Permanent supportive housing works. It’s a concrete, proven, cost-effective solution to a problem many thought could never be solved. And the success bred new supporters, new strategic partnerships, all under Jon Bon Jovi’s banner of “Because We Can.” Those men and women who had survived years on the streets and made the hard journey of recovery and putting shattered lives back together deserved no less.

Since 1990, thousands of Project HOME residents have been given the key to their own front door. And those words never get old: “This is really my home!” We hope to hear them again and again.