Wire
Local Nonprofit gives out over $30,000 to prevent homelessness
Reach St.Pete is a local nonprofit that works to prevent, alleviate, and eliminate homelessness by bridging the gap between people and resources. The effects of COVID 19 have impacted our homeless, low-income, and at-risk communities more than ever. For those who lost jobs or wages or who are immunocompromised, it has literally put them at risk of losing their home and services.
With our county and state slowly reopening and returning to normal that means the mandates for evictions and services like water and electric will begin collecting payments again for those who have been missing payments since the start of COVID 19. We know the numbers today show us that it costs our city more money to have homeless individuals and families. We are trying our best to prevent anyone from losing housing during this pandemic.
The need is increasing with each day due to the effects of COVID 19. On some days we receive up to 75+ applications an hour which is a 1000%+ application increase for our nonprofit. Our applicants have requested bill assistance, rent assistance, grocery assistance, and miscellaneous items like diapers, formula, clothing, etc. This is only the beginning of the impacts we will see. We believe our city is doing a great job alleviating as much as they can but it really will take a collaborative efforts of all our large and small nonprofits, foundations, community initiatives to help our city recover fully from this.
We could not have made this possible without our community partners The Community Foundation Of Tampa Bay, Mariana Bichette, James Egasti, & Pinellas Community Church. With their efforts 100% of fundraising in the last few months was able to go towards COVID 19 relief which is a little over $30,000. If you’d like to help local families you can adopt a need at www.reachstpete.org, giving financially, or getting active and volunteering with us. We have 3 outreach programs that all work towards our mission and we cannot do this without our community.
If you or someone you know needs assistance with bills, rent, groceries, or miscellaneous items please fill out a form at www.reachstpete.org/need-request