Family Promise hosted a ‘Night Without a Bed Awareness’ event on Saturday to inspire the community to work together to come up with solutions to end homelessness in Great Falls.
Cari Yturri, development director for Family Promise, said you can’t fix an issue if you don’t understand it.
“The organization is committed to children, homeless children and their families, and sometimes the families aren't even homeless, they're just challenged with their rent or they're facing eviction, and we can come in and help mediate or help them financially,” Yturri said.
Family Promise advocates for the homeless community and educates others on the reasons behind homelessness. They also have a shelter called the Promise Place where they can house two families in at a time.
“We have been very successful with those families that we've housed there,” Yturri said. “They have done a great job of moving from homelessness to remaining stable [in] apartments and small homes.”
Family Promise is a non-profit organization based on community donations and support. Several high school students volunteered regularly and helped facilitate the night without a bed event on Saturday.
“I think everyone deserves a bed to sleep in and a roof over their head, no matter the situation,” said Ireland Osentowski, a high school volunteer. “Everyone should be able to have that, [and] I hope that this allows people to truly see the issue and help out as well.”
Also present at the event were several other non-profit organizations, dedicated to helping the homeless community in Great Falls to better the community.
“Great Falls is a growing community right now and there's a lot of positives, but there's still some negatives that need to be addressed,” Osentowski said. “This is just a step in the right direction to truly help Great Falls and see what we can do to make the world a better place.”
Family Promise is hoping to host events like these more often to continue advocating for and helping the homeless community.
Yturri added, “It's important to understand what causes homelessness, and it's not one thing, it's many things.”
