 IHNA is full with three hard working families and they are doing their best to find affordable housing and to move into a permanent home. Because all three of our families are employed, their children are in childcare during the day which IHNA covers while they are in our program.
In 2018, IHNA has seen a significant increase in our childcare costs. The reasons for this include: our shelter is now open 365 days a year (in the past we closed down for about six weeks because we did not have enough host congregations to house our families; in the past two years we have increased the number of congregations in our network from 22 to 39) and we are working diligently to not have any empty spaces in our shelter (in the past it has taken significant time to find and move a new family in; we have made changes so that a space is not empty but for a day or two).
Both of these reasons meant that we are taking care of more children and paying for their childcare. We have also seen a rise of families with small children (under the age of 4) and therefore these children are not in school and need full time day care.
All of these reasons mean that our childcare cost could almost double in 2018. In 2017, we spent close to $14,000 in childcare. As of April 30, 2018, we had spent over $16,000 in childcare.
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We are thrilled that Ebenezer Baptist Church West will be joining the IHNA network. Welcome and thank you! With Ebenezer this brings the total number of congregations in our network to 39. 
Our new intern, Tamra Nasworthy, shared the following video with us and now we are sharing it with you. Thanks to all of our donors and volunteers who are helping to address the issue of family homelessness. Thanks Tamra!
