BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Family Promise of WNY has received a $300,000 grant from the KeyBank Foundation that will help it build a second shelter for families in Buffalo.
“We, as a shelter, we can't solve family homelessness alone. We need the community behind us,” said Luanne Firestone, the executive director of Family Promise. "We can keep our lights on and keep the basics going with the money that we get from the county. But it's investments in our program like from the KeyBank Foundation, or other foundations, donors, people dropping off food to our shelter or holiday gifts to our shelter, it's those kinds of investments that really can help us do all of the magical things here.”
Firestone told me that the current shelter located off Hickory Street, which can accommodate six families, is always full.
“We're full all the time because family homelessness is really off the track right now and so that's why it's so important that we're working to build a second shelter,” she said.
The second shelter is planned to be located at East Ferry Street and Jefferson Avenue and would house up to eight families at a time.
The $300,000 grant from KeyBank will help Family Promise get the project going.
The new shelter will help families like that of Lasandra Harris, who has been at the Hickory Street location for about two months now. She has been staying there with her four children.
On Wednesday, she got the keys to her new apartment. Family Promise helped her get back on her feet and also assisted her with a security deposit. If all goes well, her family will be in the new apartment by Thanksgiving.
“Yes, at home. At my new place. I'm excited,” she told me. “I want to cry but I can't because I’ve been going through so much. But just remaining humble and blessed….spiritual.”
Her family marked the exciting milestone by putting their handprints on a mural inside the shelter of all the people who have passed through and gone on to find their own homes.
