Housing ...Our Future forum - #MTHforum2015

Come out this afternoon in Milton (November 21st 2-5pm) to the Forum on homelessness in our community. The forum is titled Housing ...Our Future.

It is an excellent opportunity to understand the continuum for those at risk of homelessness and the respective roles of soup kitchens, overnight shelters and transitional housing in providing support.

Brian Carney, Executive Director of Blue Sea Philanthropy – organizers of the Coldest Night of the Year walk across Canada – will be the keynote speaker. Following the keynote will be a panel discussion with participation from: one of MTH’s “graduate” clients, Habitat for Humanity, Halton Women’s Place, the Posse Project and several others.

Visit the Milton Transitional Housing Facebook page here for more details. We look forward to welcoming you at this great forum supported by a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The forum starts at 2pm at the Milton Senior’s Centre Auditorium, 500 Child’s Drive, Milton L9T 5G2 (fully accessible).

Follow the forum on Twitter through #MTHforum2015 @MiltonTH1 or @opencityinc

MTH has a $218,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation grant!

This fabulous news arrived in early April and we announced it at the Empty Bowls Soup Lunch on April 19. The grant will cover a period of three years and will cover about 30% of our annual operating budget each year.

What does this mean for MTH?
MORE HOUSING UNITS:
OTF granted this funding to allow MTH to grow from three to ten supported housing units by the end of 2018. The plan is to add two new units in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017, and a final one in 2018. MTH has already contracted to add a fourth unit this summer and expect to add the fifth in the fall.

EXPANDING SERVICE:
This funding will also pay for the first year of our Case Manager(s) salary to support the participants who will join MTH’s program in the new units in their journey “from HOPE to HOME”. The screening for a new participant / participant family for the fourth unit coming online is already in progress.

GROWING THE ORGANIZATION:
The OTF funding will also provide seed funding to hire a half-time Program Manager who will oversee the participant part of MTH’s program. This will free up Donna to build the organization and look for the new sources of funding that will be necessary to support ten units long-term. The funding will also allow MTH to contract for a quarter-time bookkeeper / administrative assistant to help keep the organization running smoothly.

RAISING AWARENESS:
Finally, OTF recognizes the need for MTH to raise the awareness of Milton / Halton residents surrounding the problem of homelessness and a publicity strategy is currently being developed to accomplish this goal.

Another inspiring Empty Bowls event

Today we witnessed a true community coming together for others; those at risk of homelessness in Milton. The soup was wonderful, the creativity of the bowls stunning and the sense of community inspiring.

Watch this terrific interview with Donna Danielli, Executive Director, Milton Transitional Housing. Danielli talks about the great work of Milton Transitional Housing, this 2015 Empty Bowls event and the exciting news about a new Ontario Trillium Foundation grant to enable growth from 3-10 units.

Photographed one of the volunteer servers, Sarah Quart.

Watch for the next blog post formerly thanking all the sponsors by name as well as news of the funds raised from this excellent annual Empty Bowls event.

Fabulous turnout for 4th Empty Bowls

There was a fabulous turnout for today's Empty Bowls event run by Milton Transitional Housing (MTH) in the MinMaxx Hall of Milton Centre for the Arts. The bowls were stunning and the soups delicious.

New MTH Executive Director, Donna Danielli, expressed her gratitude to the volunteers, sponsor but mostly to the those of the members of the community who came out to support this important fourth Empty Bowls annual event. Important, because with the original Ontario Trillium Foundation funding having come to an end the organisation is ever more reliant of the Empty Bowls or other fundraising events like Coldest Night of the Year to enable MTH to meet its commitment to clients in need and achieve its objectives.

We were pleased to see Ted Chudleigh, Indira Naidoo-Harris and other local politicians and councilors again supporting this event helping our own community. There were several members of the media present, including the Milton Villager and Milton Champion so look out for coverage over the coming weeks.

It was announced that last month's Coldest Night of the Year event raised $43,000 which will result in income to MTH of around $33,000. I will share the outcome of this Empty Bowls event as soon as possible. The MTH Board will soon be preparing their next grant submission to help MTH continue to grow. The organisation has expanded its horizons with the intent to 3 more units through 2014 and gradually increase to 13 units in the next 5 years. This is amazing given where we were in 2008.

For those of us who have been there from the start and the 1st Empty Bowls is a truly thrilling to see how the event has grown and the organisation prospered to become and establish part of the Milton community landscape. The first client is graduating from the prgram meaning we will soon be able to help a new client or family.

There are so many sponsors and volunteers to thank as well as the cooperation of the Milton Centre for the Arts staff. The Event Sponsor was Prosperity One, Empty Bowls Host Sponsor and our Platinum Sponsor is MinMaxx. Simply Creative again donated the bowls which had been hand decorated by volunteers. We thank our Silver sponsor U-Need Storage, Ads at Work Media Sponsor and all the other local businesses who donated soup or food. See the Milton Transitional Housing website or Facebook page.