| The Crisis Line | Emergency Shelter | Children's Services | Transitional Housing | Counseling and Support Group Services | Outreach Services | Trainings & Speaking |
The Beyond Shelter Initative
CWS' Beyond Shelter Initiative is a coordinated effort to provide assistance and support to women and children beginning lives free from violence. When survivors flee from abuse, they must face sometimes overwhelming economic challenges, made worse by the perpetration of financial abuse by their partners. A history of evictions or bad credit is not an uncommon barrier to finding safety for women leaving an abusive situation.
In 2009, Clackamas Women’s Services teamed up with other Clackamas County service providers to create the Beyond Shelter Initiative. The Beyond Shelter Initiative will implement the first “Housing First” program model in Clackamas County for survivors. Funding from United Way, the Office on Violence Against Women, and HUD provides a broader range of preventative services to reduce trauma and return shelters to spaces of crisis intervention, not long-term revolving doors.
To meet the needs of a geographically and culturally diverse community CWS has structured a community response through collaboration between non-profit, government and faith-based organizations. To this end, CWS has teamed up with partner agencies Northwest Housing Alternatives, Clackamas County Rent Well, Legal Aid Services of Oregon, and Los Niños Cuentan. Coordination provides a framework to administer services such as eviction prevention grants, outreach, and home-based family support services. Through this teamwork, CWS is able to provide transitional housing, permanent supportive housing and rental subsidies as well as homelessness prevention service activities.
The program includes a homeless prevention and a rapid re-housing strategy for participants accessing shelter. Additionally, CWS is able to offer support services to mitigate family fragmentation, address isolation through fostering community connections, and support trauma recovery during the critical transition time entering into housing and long-term stability.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness endorses the “Housing First” approach as a critical component to ending family homelessness. What differentiates this approach from traditional emergency shelter or transitional housing is that it is “housing-based,” with an immediate and primary focus on helping individuals and families quickly access and sustain permanent housing. Research demonstrates that this type of homeless prevention program is not only far more cost effective then the revolving shelter door, and it is far more successful in stabilizing families and reducing the impact of homelessness and family trauma on children.
The objectives of CWS' Transitional Housing Program include: assisting participants in obtaining permanent housing, increasing their skills & income, and achieving greater self-determination in their lives. All participants receive a variety of home-based supportive services uniquely tailored to fit their family's specific needs and future goals.
Privacy Party
As one of our largest funders, HUD requires us to post our privacy policy on our website. We have adopted the county's HMIS Technical Standards Policy. To see this policy, please go to http://www.clackamas.us/docs/cd/privacynoticeclients11607.pdf
Warning! Abusers can track your internet activity. If an abuser has access to your computer, use a safer computer such as the computer at a library or a friend's house.
