Keep Austin Housed AmeriCorps Program

Program Description

In 2003, Front Steps was awarded an AmeriCorps *State federal grant to create Keep Austin Housed, a project that addresses the issues of an estimated 4,000 homeless single adults, families, and youth living on the streets in Austin/Travis County. It was determined that case management programs working with homeless populations were often at capacity and staff was often stretched thin, impacting the overall effectiveness of service delivery. After Front Steps' seventh year with the Keep Austin Housed AmeriCorps project, the program was discontinued in 2010 due to changes in funding priorities on behalf of One Star Foundation.  After hearing from One Star that Keep Austin Housed was once again eligible to apply for funding opportunities, Front Steps re-applied in 2011 and was awarded a grant to re-start the program.

The design of the Keep Austin Housed AmeriCorps project is to partner with social service agencies that serve the homeless population in Austin and to augment their case management programs by providing these agencies with AmeriCorps members to enhance their level of service delivery. Our project’s AmeriCorps members engaged clients in a process that empowered them to obtain and/or maintain permanent affordable housing and improve personal stability through the development of effective life skills. In addition, AmeriCorps members educated the community-at-large on issues related to homelessness and access the support of community volunteers, in-kind donations, and financial contributions.

Our original grant award allowed Front Steps to place ten AmeriCorps members at five partner agencies during our first project year (2003-2004). In our second year (2004-2005), we were awarded additional dollars to increase the number of AmeriCorps members to twenty-five, consequently increasing the number of partner agencies to seven. In the fall of 2005, we applied for an additional grant to address disaster and relief efforts stemming from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We were awarded the grant, and in January 2006 ten additional AmeriCorps member were added to our project working specifically with evacuees from the hurricanes and increasing our network of partner agencies to nine. In our seventh and what we thought to be our final year (2009-2010), 24 full-time AmeriCorps members served eight local social service organizations. 

In our current year 2011-2012, 23 members will be assigned to Front Steps (lead agency), Casa Marianella, Family Eldercare, Safe Place, Life Works, Caritas of Austin, Trinity Center, and Foundation for the Homeless.