Volunteer Spotlight: Northwest Pilot Project

-
What happens when the city you live in grows too expensive to afford housing? For a large amount of senior citizens, homelessness is a reality. The housing crisis in Portland has been building for years, creating an income gap in which realistic and affordable housing is few and far between. So where do these senior citizens turn? That is where Northwest Pilot Project steps in.

Beginning in 1969, this volunteer program was started to provide support for seniors at risk of losing their ability to live independently. This initiative spawned the first Meals on Wheels program in Oregon, addressed accessibility issues with the TriMet system, relocated seniors who lost housing due to gentrification and closures, started a group of Portland churches providing help to the poor, and set up a vast network of volunteers willing to help seniors with services, ranging from health care to legal assistance. Once a program outgrew the ability of the NWPP, it became its own entity, leaving the NWPP to focus efforts on their four in house core services: volunteer visitors, transportation, housing assistance, and senior advocacy.

In 2016-2017, their housing program was able to place 236 seniors into permanent homes. Of those 236, 92% of the placements were still housed after a year. They offered rent assistance to prevent eviction for 270 seniors in that time frame, boasting a 90% success rate that those who received it were still housed after a year. They offered housing support to 1534 seniors in that time period, both men and women. 27% were older than 65 years of age. 76% were disabled seniors. And 14% were veterans. In their snapshot of the year, it breaks down the monthly income of their clients, the majority of them making anywhere from $1 to $1,000 dollars. 25% of their clients have no income whatsoever.

Through this year, NWPP boasts a total of 7,645 volunteer hours, comprised of 192 separate individuals. Laura Golino de Lovato, NWPP’s executive director, says “hope keeps us and our clients looking forward… but hope doesn’t stand alone at NWPP. With your support and partnership, NWPP made a real and tangible difference to more than 1,700 low and extremely-low income seniors last fiscal year.” In a time where it is easy to find so many things wrong with our society, NWPP is an organization that is striving to do right.



For more information on the Northwest Pilot Project, follow the links below:


Northwest Pilot Project

NWPP 2016-2017 Impact Report

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Domestic Violence within the Homeless Community

-
Image
  Domestic Violence within the Homeless Community Source: Unsplash The Facts                                                                                          According to  Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 233,832 are people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the United States. Of the 233,832, 50,767 are families with children.  Currently, 30% of homeless people are adult women.  (portlandoregon.gov)   Bradley Angle , which works to support survivors of  domestic violence , reported that 70% of domestic violence reports are from homeless women. ( www.kgw.com)  Homeless women are 1/3 of the fastest growing populations HUD homeless populations. ( portlandoregon.gov)   Specifically, in Por...
Read more

Understanding Homelessness

-
Image
  Source (American Addiction Centers)      Homelessness has a myriad of different reasons it can happen. The similarity between all scenarios in which a person is experiencing homelessness is that each person is human. A popular belief is that homelessness is a choice. People believe there is a set amount of circumstances that cause homelessness and that it is a choice not to fight to get out of those problems. The problems can range from mental health issues to drug addiction. There is no one size fits all, and it is not a choice.  Over the last few weeks, I have learned that there are many factors that can lead to homelessness. One big one that focuses on our class is how affordable housing, or the lack thereof, is a significant contributor to people not getting back on their feet. If you want to learn more about that subject and if affordable housing can help, click here.   This lack of affordable housing is a big roadblock for those trying to ove...
Read more

Air pollution caused by wildfires may increase risk of dementia

-
Image
  There are already more than 57 million dementia sufferers in the world, and by 2050, that figure is predicted to rise to 153 million. It is estimated that risk factors like exposure to air pollution account for up to 40% of these instances. Even when annual exposure was lower than the current EPA annual threshold of 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (g/m3), the researchers discovered continuous evidence of a relationship between PM2.5 and dementia. The researchers discovered a 17% increase in risk for dementia for every 2 g/m3 increase in average yearly exposure to PM2.5, specifically among the studies using active case ascertainment. Despite the fact that the data was more sparse, they also discovered evidence supporting links between dementia and nitrogen oxide (5% increase in risk for every 10 g/m3 increase in yearly exposure) and nitrogen dioxide (2% increase in risk for every 10 g/m3 increase in annual exposure). According to a recent University of Michigan study, wildfi...
Read more