In 1988, First Presbyterian Church of Shreveport began researching the problem of homelessness in the Shreveport-Bossier community. Findings revealed that, although there were many homeless families in the area, shelters were available only for single men. Families with children found themselves homeless for a variety of reasons, including loss of employment, eviction, lack of reliable and affordable childcare services, the scarcity of affordable housing, little to no access to reliable transportation to and from work, drug and alcohol abuse, and victimization through domestic violence.

Today, Providence House is the largest transitional and domestic shelter for homeless families with children in Louisiana, with the capacity to serve 90 families daily. In addition, it is the only shelter in Louisiana that operates a fully-licensed daycare facility dedicated to the care of homeless children. The organization has a staff of 60 employees and a budget of $3,500,000. Since 1992, Providence House has served 9,614 homeless people in 2,955 families (that included 3,486 adults and 6,099 children) and has provided 880,115 nights of shelter.

Providence House has a “think out of the box” approach to creating and adjusting programs to remain relevant to the times in which we live and the needs which our clients have. We teach life, parenting, budgeting, and educational skills to equip clients with the tools required to maintain an independent lifestyle. We did not want to provide a temporary solution to a permanent problem; we created the Providence House Program, which is the first of its kind in Louisiana that sought to end the cycle of homelessness by stabilizing the families and aiding them in establishing permanent housing. The development process lasted one year and involved residents, staff, and consulting psychologists. More recently, we have created programs to assist our clients through the transition from shelter living to independent living, such as “Scoot to Work,” (providing client-purchased scooters to combat the lack of adequate public transportation to school and work), “Working to Learn” (a program that pays a weekly stipend to “employees” who work at the full-time job of pursuing their GED), and “Project Next Step,” which utilizes a network of off-site apartments subsidized by Providence House in Shreveport and Bossier City.

Over the years, Providence House earned “Standards of Excellence” certification by the Louisiana Association of Non-Profits (LANO), an accomplishment that only 57 out of 2,263 non-profit organizations in Louisiana have accomplished. In 2008, the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier awarded Providence House with the first annual “Return on Investment” Award for taking a budget of $2.3 million and transforming it into an economic impact of $23 million, a testimony to our steadfast guarantee to our donors that we continue to be good stewards of their investment funds. Support like this enabled us to open a 25-room SAFE House shelter for domestic violence victims, increasing the number of families we serve at Providence House from 65 to 90 families daily. We recognized the need for this facility when 25% of the 757 individuals Providence House served in 2008 were presented as victims of domestic violence, dramatically increasing the number of other homeless families the shelter turned away. We also initiated a Sexual Assault Advocacy Program, as Phoenix Advocacy Center closed its Shreveport operations, to ensure that services to sexual assault victims continued in northwest Louisiana. We also built a 7,000 square foot Donation Center to provide a safe, dry, and secure place to store donated furniture before it goes to furnish client apartments.

Our accomplishments would not be possible without the support we receive from our network of donors. Tangible evidence of their trust in us, alliance with our mission, and vision for the future can be seen in the faces of clients relieved to have safe haven from abusers and access to counseling and other resources, in the faces of our program graduates, and especially in the faces of their children. Their success is our success.