Modesto Family Promise helps homeless get life on firm footing

One afternoon about two months ago, the wheels came off – or at least one of them did, both figuratively and literally – for Andreya Gallegos.

The 35-year-old divorced mother and her three young girls found themselves bouncing from motel to motel or sleeping in parks.

“It was a dangerous situation,” Gallegos said.

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As they passed in front of Franklin & Downs McHenry Chapel funeral home heading toward a motel one night, what seemed at the time like the worst thing that could have happened instead turned into the best break they’ve experienced in the past year.

“The stroller broke,” Gallegos said, adding that it carried “two children and all of our possessions, which weren’t much.”

Indeed, the wheel crumbled. So how did a bad break turn into a good one?

Because Kristi Ah You, the funeral home’s managing partner and also a Modesto City Council member, saw them outside and asked if they needed help. After striking out finding beds for them at other shelters, Ah You reached Tamra Losinki of Family Promise of Greater Modesto.

The interfaith agency works to help its clients address the issues that left them homeless and to connect them with the resources that will guide them back into permanent housing and the ability to soon make in on their own. They work with 14 hosting and three supporting congregations in the Modesto area.

That night, and every night since, Gallegos and daughters Natalia, 7, Rosie, 3, and Reyna, 1, have lived in safety and comfort. They’ve been sheltered at the various host churches. Natalia is now in school. The younger children are in day care. They receive meals from the church hosts. They have access to washers and dryers for clean clothing. And Gallegos last week started her new job at a retail store.

“I thought there was no way that was ever going to happen,” Gallegos said. “But Tamra believed in me and Patty (case worker Estrada) believed in me when I did not believe in myself.”

Through Family Promise, she now has a game plan. Gallegos works with Losinski and Estrada to learn how to manage a budget, to save 75 percent of her salary now while staying rent-free in the church facilities. Losinski and Estrada, meanwhile, are working to help the family find rental housing as they have wtih 80 percent of those they’ve served. The agency will help them pay the first three months of rent, paying a bit less each month as the families make the transition to becoming self-sufficient, Losinski said.

Gallegos no doubt has a long way to go. But for the first time in a long time, Gallegos feels like she and her children are headed in a positive direction and that the wheel, in their case, is no longer coming off.

This story was originally published November 19, 2016 at 10:28 PM with the headline "Modesto Family Promise helps homeless get life on firm footing."