| How did Lydia Place begin? A residence for homeless women and their children, Lydia Place opened as a means to address the two primary needs of poor women in the community: housing and employment. Initiated by a task force of Church Women United, Lydia Place is now a nonprofit corporation supported wholly by grants and donations from individuals, churches, businesses and corporations. How did we get our name? The name was taken from Lydia in the New Testament. She was a businesswoman (a seller of purple cloth) and hospitable (she opened her home to the apostle Paul). Since the goal of the transitional housing program was to assist the women in becoming self-sufficient and to offer hospitality to homeless women and their children, Lydia seemed to exemplify the mission of the new organization. Although our name comes from the Bible the program we run does not have any type of religious affiliation to the services we provide to clients. When did Lydia Place actually open its doors?
The first family moved in October 1989. Back to top When was our house built?
  
Kitchen space after remodel (1998) Business office wing and program addition (2000) Women's program room (2000)  Two of the three bathrooms that were remodeled (2008)What did we pay for the house and is it paid for? The original house was purchased for $137,000 and was totally paid for. In 2000, we received a zero interest, deferred loan in the amount of $140,000 from the City of Bellingham to add our new addition. Although that means there is a lien against the property, it does not have to be repaid as long as we continue to serve homeless families in our community. Back to top How many clients can we serve at a time?We have the potential of housing up to eight families; however, we cannot exceed 18 people. This results in housing five to seven families at a time (depending on the number of children in each family). What are the requirements for entering the program?
The initial screening criteria - woman is homeless and has children with her. Once this is established, the staff member who takes the call will do a telephone intake to determine whether the client is appropriate for the program. A face-to-face interview and intake will follow.
Back to top How long can a family stay at Lydia Place? Our program is designed for a six-month stay. However, if a woman has a housing voucher or is finalizing housing arrangements, we will extend her stay to accommodate her plans.
Does Lydia Place provide any other programs?
Lydia Place provides a Follow-up Program to the families that graduate from the in-house program. This program is voluntary for families to participate in and provides after care support to our families that would like to keep in contact with us after attaining their own permanent home. The Follow-up Program offers continued case management, women/parenting support groups, birthday and holiday help for families and child advocacy for a full year. This will assist our families in continuing to maintain their stable housing and creating a healthy/safe environment for mom and kids.
This year alone we've had ten of our twelve families that graduated continue their support with us by participating in our follow up program (2008-2009)! What is unique about Lydia Place? Lydia Place is committed to do more than just provide a roof over their heads -- we are able to provide support, advocacy, resources, and life-skills training to help break the cycle of homelessness. The resources of social service agencies and the organizational support of community volunteers are used in the program and are important to its success. How are we funded? Lydia Place receives the following funding: - City of Bellingham $ 25,000
- Whatcom County $15,000
- United Way allocation $22,000
- United Way designations $11,000
- THOR $7,000
- Wise Buys $20,000
- Program Service Fees $3,000
- Donations and Fund raising $95,500
- Private Foundations $60,00
Do we only serve women who are homeless with kids?
It's getting even harder to pin point with these harder economic times what causes homelessness for families. Already we're seeing an increase in services to families that have never needed services like ours before in the past. Some of the causes can be but are not limited to: loss of a job, inability to pay rent, domestic violence (often the women and children are expected to leave the house not the abuser), substance abuse issues resulting in the loss of housing, and mental health issues. Often we may see families that have more than one of those reasons above as a reason for them losing their past permanant housing.
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