Madison, WI––JustDane is honored to have been awarded a grant from the TruStage Foundation. The $200,000 grant will be divided between JustDane’s Healing House and Reentry Services.
“With this grant from TruStage, access to permanent housing supports will be expanded by filling a gap in available housing supports. By increasing access to permanent housing this grant helps improve educational outcomes for children, health outcomes, economic outcomes and employment outcomes,” said Linda Ketcham, JustDane’s Executive Director.
Since opening its doors four years ago, nearly 250 guests have found a safe place to stay at Healing House. Healing House, an eight-bed facility offering 24/7 recuperative care by medically-trained staff and volunteers for up to 28-days, provides families experiencing homelessness a safe place to prepare for or recover from a major medical procedure or hospitalization. Half of the funding from the grant will be used to increase behavioral health supports for our guests and to purchase new beds, couches and other equipment that has been heavily used.
$100,000 will be allocated to program participants across our initiatives (reentry, Just Bakery, Healing House, and Just Connections) who need rental assistance but find themselves ineligible for HUD funded rapid rehousing supports, whether because of conviction history, because they do not meet the narrow HUD definition of literally homeless or because the housing is transitional and not permanent.
“At TruStage we believe a brighter financial future should be accessible to everyone,” said Alexzandra Shade, TruStage’s Director of Corporate Social Responsibility. “TruStage recognizes that education, health, infrastructure and economic well-being are all interconnected. JustDane is helping people in the early stages of their path toward a brighter financial future. It’s critical to the Madison community’s health that JustDane receives support.”
