Out of Money and Out of Time: Hailey's Search for Stability.

By Jane Farstrider

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a hard-working mother with three young children. You, your husband, and kids sit in a run-down motel room, nearly 2,000 miles from your home state. The few resources your family had were enough to get you to Spokane, but neither of you has a job yet. The credit cards are maxed out. You have no way to pay for another night indoors. You’re exhausted, and the hope of finding a fresh start is turning to cold panic.

For Hailey VenHuizen, facing that stark reality pushed her to look for help she never thought she would need.

Hailey’s quiet determination is striking as she explains how they had struggled in Ligonier, Indiana before deciding to take a leap into the unknown and move across the country.

“Life in Indiana was not ideal for my family,” she says. “I was working 7 days a week from 2 p.m. - 3:30 a.m. to care for my family and catch up on the bills. Finally, when I was almost caught up on all of the bills, the rent had increased significantly and I fell behind. Again. I had received a notice to vacate my home and there were limited resources that would help with rental assistance. I prayed every day hoping God would hear me.”

When an old friend told Hailey and her husband about Spokane, they felt that the opportunities there would be worth leaving everything they knew behind.

In Indiana they didn’t have a support network, the educational options weren’t great, and resources for people struggling financially were sparse. “There wasn’t even a bus system,” she says. “We took our tax refund and escaped Indiana and never looked back.”

Hailey’s husband flew to Spokane in February of 2019, and Hailey followed in March with the kids, who were all between the ages of 1 and 5 at the time.

“The position that we were in was dreadful and embarrassing,” Hailey says. “Maybe we should've had a plan before we moved to Spokane, sure, but we also knew that if we had stayed in Indiana, our position would've been much worse.”

“The beginning of it was terrifying. You feel like a horrible person having to put our kids through that, it is not fair. It was February, pouring rain and we were cold and soaked when we arrived at Family Promise’s Open Doors Shelter.

If it weren’t for Family Promise, we wouldn’t be alive today. We would’ve gone hungry and cold. We would’ve ended up under a bridge in a tent.

When they couldn’t afford another night at the motel, Hailey took action and started googling emergency family shelters, even though it made her deeply uncomfortable.

Hailey says that during this time, she knew she had to hold it together and be a positive role model for her kids.“How you feel on the inside is what you manifest on the outside,” she says. “You just keep going. Stopping is not an option.”

“I mustered up the courage to call Open Doors,” she says. “Katie Theobald answered my phone call. She was gentle and understanding and her warmth made me feel comfortable enough to explain the situation. Katie walked my family through the anxieties and fears that we were experiencing.”

With Katie’s instructions, they never had to face a night on the streets. Hailey and her family got into Open Doors, a day shelter run by Family Promise where they could safely stay together and work on next steps. “Once I had called and spoke to Katie, we were in the shelter the very next morning at 7 a.m.”

“What I love about Family Promise is that they keep the family together,” Hailey says. “On our first day, there was a table full of resources for school, childcare, and jobs.”

One of the brochures on that table was for the Vanessa Behan Crisis Center, where they were able to bring the kids while they searched for work and connected with other resources.

“I felt a lot of security,” Hailey remembers. “We felt safe, wanted, and comfortable. They gave me tools I needed to go home. I filled out an application for another Bridges program – where we’d have our own room for the day, and were taken to a church to stay overnight.” The Bridges transitional living program approved their family quickly, and there Hailey met Susan Heitsman, whose support was particularly impactful.

“Susan was helpful and had gone the extra mile to ensure my family would be successful. When I found a home, Susan and her husband helped us with finding and moving furniture into our new home. I miss her greatly.”

When trying to imagine where they might have ended up, Hailey says “I couldn’t tell you and I don't want to know. That whole experience was so scary, but Family Promise made me feel safe. We felt welcomed and wanted. Their staff is amazing. If you are in a shelter and you don’t feel safe, welcomed and wanted – you’re going to fail.”

They were able to get food stamps, and through a program called Work First, Hailey’s husband found a job as a frozen foods manager at WalMart, and Hailey enrolled in Spokane Community College’s nursing program.

While it was an enormous relief to be in transitional living, they were still anxious to find permanent housing, and once again the options were limited. On a whim, Hailey says she sent out an S.O.S on Craigslist.

“When I say S.O.S, I mean that I was at the point of giving up and shared my story in a post needing help,” Hailey explains. “There were hardly any homes available to my family, even with the housing choice voucher that we had received through Spokane Housing Authority.”

Two days later, a landlord who was touched by Hailey’s post reached out saying he owned a vacant house and wanted to provide a stable home for her and her family. Coincidentally, the house was directly across the street from a daycare where she would be able to take the kids while she was in school. “We were homeless for less than a month from the first day of our arrival in Spokane,” she says.

“If I was talking to someone in the position I was in years ago, I’d tell them to use those resources that are available and keep going,” Hailey says. “They were all wonderful and exactly what we needed to move forward. You need to have grit and patience while you’re on this journey – if you don’t you will fail.”

Hailey says a lot has changed for them in recent years. “We are healthy, happy and in the best position that we have ever been in. Family Promise made it possible for my family to be a part of the community just by providing us support to step into the right direction to achieve stability and success.”

Since 2019, Hailey hasn’t slowed down. Her experiences from that year motivated her to chase her own goals to help people facing similar challenges. With her medical training, compassion, and first-hand knowledge, she is looking for opportunities to get more involved with the program that helped her find her footing here.

“I would love to have a permanent position at Family Promise,” Hailey says. “I want to help other families navigate their own journey. I don't want them to feel alone. My journey was scary and it would've been much worse had I not had the support of Family Promise.”

But she hasn’t stopped there. Just recently, Hailey took the first steps of starting a business that she hopes will help fill in some of the gaps she saw back in 2019.

“My company is called Nest Haven Properties LLC. I have big plans that may just be the answer to our families struggling with permanent housing within the community. What my company will be doing is renovating distressed properties to make permanent housing available to families that hold the housing choice voucher.”

The space and privacy to raise their children during those crucial days made all the difference to her, and Hailey wants to provide that stability to other families experiencing homelessness. By creating job opportunities for them at the same time, she hopes to give people the foundation they need for long-term success.

“There are many apartment complexes that do provide housing,” she explains, “but that housing is not permanent. I want to get to the core of the problem that is in our community and provide housing for families when they leave the shelter.”

“I have these plans all written out with years of projections to show that this would be a success,” Hailey says. Her plans aren’t without setbacks, though. She says startup funding is her next hurdle, and she is hoping someone will listen long enough to see the potential in her plans. “There is no way that I will give up on pushing this company forward to launch,” she says.

“It is amazing how stable housing can make a world of a difference for one family,” she says. “Now that we are stable, I am able to help my community. If every homeless family in Spokane had stable housing, could you imagine what our community would be like?”

“Family Promise loved us like their own. They gave us warmth, food, and shelter. It was like a mom and dad helping us out.”

“It’s wonderful to have a future,” she says.

“I just need someone to believe that together we can end homelessness in Spokane by getting to the root of the problem.”

Norm's Story

By Jane Farstrider

When you meet Norm, you can’t help but be disarmed by his openness and warmth as he shares details of his past ― many of them moments a person might rather forget. But he always returns to the good things he experienced amidst the struggle.

As he tells his story, Norm reaches down to stroke Little Bit, the grinning pug who’s been a constant companion to Norm and his granddaughter, Cheyenne, for the past eight years.

Norm describes a younger version of himself that doesn’t seem to fit the soft-spoken man of today, who shares photos of his spunky 10-year-old granddaughter with smiling eyes. But back in the 90s and early 2000s, addiction had a firm grip on his life and he wound up in jail more than once. “I was a real thug back then,” he says. “I thought I was a real tough guy, you know?”

It was a serious car accident that eventually shook that tough guy image and set Norm on a different path. “When I hit my head on that windshield in 2006, my entire life changed ― I became a different person,” he says. “My life has been really full, except that I had a drug problem.”

It was a long, rough road to sobriety, but with a broken neck and the possibility he might never walk or talk normally again, he knew something had to change. After 52 days in the hospital, he left on his own two feet, determined to make a better life for himself.

A parietal lobe stroke added to his struggles in 2011, and Norm explains that even now it can be difficult to communicate ― apologizing when his story wanders. Norm’s battle for social security assistance stalled for years, but he did his best to get by without it.

He started his own telemarketing company in Arizona, and got to work building a life for himself and Cheyenne, who he has cared for since she was born. Regret tinges Norm’s husky voice as he reflects that he wasn’t really around for his older children as they grew up, and the chance to be there for his granddaughter changed everything. “It’s been the most amazing ten years of my life, raising Cheyenne,” he says.

But when his business went under in 2016, they lost their home. For four years, they bounced between temporary living situations, and Norm would often house-sit so they’d have a safe place to stay.

In early 2020, Norm and Cheyenne returned to the Northwest, where he had some family and hoped for a new start. With $390 and whatever he could fit in his vehicle, they made it to Spokane and briefly stayed with Norm’s niece. The situation didn’t last, however, and before long they were back at square one.

Not knowing what to do next, Norm says he and Cheyenne spent their days exploring Bear Lake, barbecuing and making the most of it, despite the uncertainty they faced. At night, they would park at the Flying J truck stop on Broadway to sleep, because there was security and it felt safer.

With the colder weather, Norm knew they had to figure something out soon, and was preparing to drive to a warming shelter in Idaho that would take the two of them. “It’s hard for a man and a girl to get a spot. Really hard,” he says. “I’d been to churches ― everywhere.” But when a new acquaintance told him about Family Promise, they jumped at the opportunity. “We never had to do the shelter thing where you have to sleep on the floor. We had our own room ― everybody did! There were five families there.”

“We met some amazing people through Family Promise. I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’ve been around.”

“This is so much different. They’ve stuck with me through all my trials and tribulations; helped me with electric bills; helped me get my vehicle fixed a couple of times. It’s a tried and true program … I’m not saying people never fail, but not because they aren’t trying to help you.”

“It’s not just getting you into a place,” Norm continues, “they set you up. They’ve helped me with so many things that I’m sure would have pushed me back … Now we’re able to do everything on our own to make it.”

He pulls out his phone, and flips through photos of a beaming Cheyenne in her Halloween costume, and talks about the basketball game he’s taking her to at EWU for family day. He says he wishes he was better at doing her hair. Luckily they have a friend ― an insurance agent who helped Norm when they first came to town ― who fixes Cheyenne’s hair when they see each other. “I guess I’m pretty good at making friends,” he says.

In August of last year, Norm and Cheyenne got their own place in Cheney, where Norm had heard good things about the schools. “That’s what I want,” he says. “I want her to have the best schooling.”

They seem to have settled into their new life, and Norm is a regular volunteer at Family Promise. These days, it’s common to see him around throughout the week, helping sort donations and lending a hand with whatever needs doing. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for these people,” he says.

Out of Options -- Out of Time

Baby Lilly* is blue-eyed in bright pink, looking up with curiosity from the arms of her mother, Larissa. Her cheeks are still rosy from the warmth of the blanket left on the bed.

Noah and Larissa’s story is one of perseverance and hardship. A story that is so similar in its heartbreak, but different in the details – from the stories of so many other families. “We’ve been here about a month,” Noah and Larissa tell me from the cozy nursery of the Infant House—Family Promise’s respite hideaway for families with newborn babies like Lilly. A month of peace. A month of sanctuary and respite from the bitter cold that has plagued Spokane as of late.

“And how old is she?”

“She was born December 20, so… about two months.” Larissa tears up at the memory. Just thinking about the terrors of giving birth with no sure housing bringing stark terror to her eyes.

It wasn’t long after Lilly was born that the family was threatened out of their living arrangements. Without anywhere else to go and a brand new baby to take care of, they were grateful and relieved to learn about Family Promise.

Larissa explained the chance encounter that led to their rescue.

“We were giving a friend a ride and he told us about (Family Promise). He had us stop at the main shelter because we needed diapers. Two days later everything happened (with our living arrangements). I called Family Promise and they said they had someone moving out of the Infant House. We literally were able to move into the Infant House the next day.” It was luck, it was chance, but it was meant to be. Without the Infant House, they are not sure what they would have done.

Grateful, relieved and happy, the Infant House is a refuge that finally feels like home for the family of three.

When asked how they’ve been holding up since their arrival, they said, “It’s definitely been relaxing. From what we were going through and our situation only getting worse, being here has been a weight off our shoulders and given us a chance to focus on moving forward.” The simplest steps are often the most difficult. Having a place to call home meant the world to them.

With private bedrooms and spacious living areas equipped for families with new bundles like Lilly, the Infant House welcomes families with open arms. Erin, the House Manager, is a warm smile who keeps guests well supplied with whatever needs arise. Downstairs, a basement pantry is lined with tall shelves of bulk foods. In several nooks and closets throughout the house, supplies are stocked from generous donors: diapers, clothes, formula, toys.

“We had nowhere else to go. This place really saved us,” Noah shares.

Sitting beside him, Larissa nods in agreement, baby Lilly staring peacefully while she speaks. “We are very thankful and blessed for the opportunity to be able to take our time and gather the things we need. These guys are wonderful. We are very thankful for Family Promise.”

The Infant House serves as Family Promise’s refuge for families with newborns. It is generously supported by grants, volunteers, and financial support from individuals. If you’re interested in donating to the Infant House to support families like Noah and Larissa’s, you can visit https://www.familypromiseofspokane.org/give.

* Changed for anonymity.