Pinellas County is losing one of its biggest homeless shelters and one of the few that offers family units.

Hope Villages of America announced it would transition its property known as Grace House from a homeless shelter to affordable housing units starting Oct. 1. At a news conference Wednesday, leaders of the organization were quick to point out that the transition is bittersweet.

“The number one way to resolve homelessness is affordable housing, making it affordable for people to stay in their homes,” said Jonita Lewis, the Executive Vice President with Hope Villages. “We’re also saddened by the reality that we’ll have to eliminate 80 beds for families facing homelessness.”

During the 40-minute news conference, President and CEO Kirk Ray Smith spent more time explaining how they got here than what’s ahead. Smith said when the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County cut its annual funding of $400,000, Grace House was effectively shut down.

He says through fundraising efforts, the shelter remained operational for another 18 months, but they had no choice but to pursue a different approach.

“We worked our behinds off to raise enough money to keep these doors open because we knew how important this work was so we were able to raise a half million dollars in 90 days,” said Smith, who also claimed the Juvenile Welfare Board kept moving the target after Hope Villages made the required adjustments.

However, the president and CEO of the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County, Beth Houghton, said they had seen issues with Grace House the last several years and in 2019, they conducted a more thorough investigation.

“A picture emerged that management spoke to and dealt with staff in a demeaning manner. Management lacked client skills and spoke to participants in the program in harsh and belittling ways,” Houghton said.

The JWB decided to give that $400,000 to another agency in the county serving homeless families by placing them in short-term hotel rooms rather than long-term stays at a shelter like Grace House.

Despite the “he said, she said” over what happened, all parties agree losing homeless beds will hurt the community.

“Anytime you lose any of it, it’s not good,” Houghton said.

At the news conference, Smith said, “It hurt to do this.”

Amy Foster, CEO of the Homeless Leadership Alliance of Pinellas, a government agency overseeing homeless agencies in the county said family placement is a big problem.

“There’s never enough family beds,” Foster said.

As of this article, 91 families in the county, some with very young children, are sleeping in the streets or in cars tonight, according to Foster. She believes with the federal funding opportunities through pandemic relief packages, more could have been done to preserve Grace House as a homeless shelter.

“I think there were options on the table including ones the city of Clearwater tried to explore with them that were not the direction the agency chose to go with,” Foster said.

Hope Villages of America will host two community discussions at 11 a.m. on July 27 at Grace House, and at 9 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2022 via Zoom.

The transition to affordable housing will start on Oct. 1.

Read the article at https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/pascocounty/pinellas-county-homeless-beds-grace-house-affordable-housing/67-4f38dea4-8c37-4860-9e7f-aea99a621d8f

The largest shelter for homeless families in Pinellas County is closing its doors for good. Grace House blames the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County for cutting off some of their funding, but the board said the shelter wasn’t being run efficiently, so instead, they said they gave the money to a shelter that was.

Grace House on S. Myrtle Avenue in Clearwater has been housing homeless families for more than three decades. This month, they stopped accepting new occupants and announced they’ll be closing for good by October 1. 

“That’s very sad. We’re not happy about that,” Hope Villages of America President Kirk Ray Smith said.

Their individual apartments allow families to stay together and not have to separate like at some other shelters. Of the 130 beds available for homeless families in Pinellas County, 80 of them are at Grace House.

“That’s a large inventory subtraction, and we know that,” Smith said. “And so it will have a ripple effect. I mean, we’re not naive. We understand that there is going to be some direct and ancillary issues and problems as a result of this.”

Smith said Hope Villages of America, which runs Grace House, had no choice but to close when the Juvenile Welfare Fund voted in December 2020 to terminate its $400,000 in annual funding to the shelter. It cited concerns over its management and financial handlings.

“This is taxpayer money. And so we expect it to be spent appropriately and well,” Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County CEO Beth Houghton said. “And we were spending it on a program that we kept having concerns about. It was a little bit of Whac-A-Mole. You know, we fix one problem and another one would come up, and we fix one problem and another one would come up.”

Houghton said complaints about how the staff treated participants was the final straw. Meanwhile, Smith said they understood the issues being presented and feel they were properly corrected.

“I don’t know if it was a rush, but I don’t think it was well thought out. And I don’t think the implications and I don’t think there was nothing even what they documented rises to the level of closure,” Smith said.

Instead, the JWB handed over the $400,000 in taxpayer funds to the St. Vincent de Paul Shelter. They’ve been doing so since February 2021. Hopes Villages of America will maintain ownership of Grace House and plans to turn the existing apartments into affordable housing.

“The bottom line is, is we know what affordable housing, that’s the number one way to combat homelessness, that we can operate in affordable housing, at the very least, neutral and not being in a deficit,” Smith said.

Read the article at https://www.fox13news.com/news/largest-pinellas-county-shelter-for-homeless-families-closes-after-funding-was-cut

Grace House, the largest shelter for homeless families in Pinellas County, will stop accepting new occupants this month and convert to an affordable housing complex by October, the head of the facility confirmed this week.

The Clearwater-based shelter had 80 beds in 14 apartments, accounting for more than half of permanent shelter units that accepted families with children in Pinellas, said Kirk Ray Smith, CEO of Hope Villages of America, the nonprofit that runs Grace House.

The loss is expected to strain the county’s homeless network, which already has a waiting list of about 90 families, according to Amy Foster, CEO of the Homeless Leadership Alliance.

“We were already in crisis,” Foster said.

The current occupants, who normally stay up to three months while getting financial literacy training and counseling, will be phased out by attrition.

The Juvenile Welfare Board, which awards property tax revenues to social service programs, voted unanimously in December 2020 to terminate its $400,000 annual funding of Grace House over concerns about the nonprofit’s finances and management.

Grace House initially was able to attract private donations to cover operations. But Smith said the loss of the Juvenile Welfare Board funding left him no choice but to close the shelter, even though he had resolved the issues that led to the board’s scrutiny.

“JWB put us in this situation, let there be no question about it,” Smith said.

However, Juvenile Welfare Board CEO Beth Houghton said problems at Grace House, from financial to treatment of residents, were serious enough to revoke funding. It also allowed for the dollars to be reallocated to a “rapid rehousing” program that she described as more effective than a shelter.

The funds went to St. Vincent de Paul CARES’ Family Bridge Housing, a model that places families in apartments and hotel rooms for short periods before transitioning them to permanent housing.

“We’re very mindful that every penny we spend is taxpayer money, and we absolutely have to be, and are very responsible with the funds,” Houghton said.

The board placed Hope Villages on a corrective action plan in August 2019 after a review found the nonprofit did not have background screenings filed for all staff and volunteers, according to a 2020 memo. The review also found high staff turnover, a lack of sound financial practices and two deaths of occupants from suspected overdoses.

By May 2020, the initial deficiencies had been resolved, but the corrective action plan remained due to financial concerns, according to the memo.

Hope Village’s fiscal year 2019 audit, reviewed in August 2020, noted a series of material weaknesses, including grants and cash accounts not being reconciled, and revenues and expenses not recorded in the general ledger.

Smith said those issues were more the result of growing pains than grounds to lose critical funding. Houghton confirmed the last two financial audits submitted to the Welfare Board after it ended the Grace House funding showed no deficiencies.

When he took over the nonprofit in 2016, then called Religious Community Services, he said it was in a $1 million deficit and “three months from insolvency.” By 2020, it had grown to a $13 million operating budget and a $100,000 deficit.

Founded in 1967, Hope Villages serves 150,000 people between its food bank, a center for women at risk of domestic abuse, and Grace House, where 90 percent of residents graduated to permanent housing before the closure.

The Welfare Board is continuing to fund $452,250 a year for Hope Villages’ domestic violence shelter, The Haven.

Houghton said the board continues to fund the domestic violence program because persistent problems were specific to management of the Grace House shelter. In September 2020, three current and one former Hope Villages staff members told the Welfare Board about Grace House management treating participants and employees poorly. In one example, shampoo was not supplied to participants, Houghton said.

Smith said Grace House maintains a 91 percent approval rating from participants.

He said Hope Villages will continue its intensive services for the homeless, like counseling and financial literacy, but it is looking to the future with its affordable housing at Grace House.

Read the article at https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinellas/2022/07/12/pinellas-largest-homeless-shelter-for-families-closes-amid-funding-loss/

Book lovers, be on the lookout for a big, rainbow, retro bus on the streets of Pinellas. The Summer Book Bus will be making 45 stops from Tarpon Springs to South St. Pete before July 11.

The books (which are all new) are free, thanks to the Juvenile Welfare Board (JWB). Each child can take home two books.

“Of course, the kids just love it,” said Jennifer Dodd, Associate Manager of Communications with JWB.

Since launching in 2017, the campaign behind the Summer Book Bus, JWB’s Early Readers, Future Leaders Grade-Level Reading Campaign, has given more than 10,000 books to more than 5,000 children in Pinellas.

This year, you still have time to catch the bus.

Here’s an online list of where the Summer Book Bus will stop through July 11.

Read the article on The Gabber.com: https://thegabber.com/summer-book-bus-brings-free-books-to-pinellas/

Climb aboard the Book Bus for a summer full of reading fun. The Juvenile Welfare Board’s Book Bus is traveling throughout Pinellas County neighborhoods, giving away books to curtail summer reading loss. 

To date, the Book Bus has given away more than 5,000 books. 

Upcoming stops include:

• NFC: Clearwater 900 N MLK Ave. Clearwater, July 11 at 10 a.m.
• Ross Norton Recreation Center (Camp AWESOME) 1426 S MLK Jr. Ave, Clearwater, July 11 at 9 a.m.
• NFC: HOC, 612 Franklin St, Clearwater, July 12 at noon.
• NFC: CAP Center, 401 E Martin Luther King Jr Drive, Tarpon Springs, July 12 at 9 a.m.
• TS: Cops & Kids, 555 E Harrison St., Tarpon Springs, July 12 at 9:45 a.m.
• TS: YMCA Elementary School, YMCA 555 E Pine St., Tarpon Springs, July 12 at 10:30 a.m.
• Rclub: East Lemon, 1019 E. Lemon St., Tarpon Springs, July 12 at 11:15 a.m.
• TS: Boys and Girls Club, 111 W. Lime St., Tarpon Springs, July 12 at 1 p.m. 
• Dunedin Public Library, 223 Douglas Avenue, Dunedin, July 13 at 11 a.m. 
• YMCA Suncoast – Dunedin Bridge, 900 Union St., Dunedin, FL 34698 7/13/2022 12:00
• YMCA Suncoast – Curlew Creek Bridge, 3030 Curlew Road, Palm Harbor, July 14 at 11:45 a.m.
• Tarpon Springs Public Library, 138 E Lemon St., Tarpon Springs, July 13 at 12:30 p.m. 
• YMCA – Lake St George Bridge, 2855 County Road 95, Palm Harbor, July 14 at 12:45 p.m.
• Largo Public Library, 120 Central Park Drive, Largo, July 12 at 10 a.m. 
• Coral Heights, 3718 139th Ave. Largo, July 13 at 1 p.m.
• YMCA Fuguitt Elementary & Starkey, 13010 101st St. SE, Largo, July 12 at 9 a.m.
• NFC: GRAYDI, 13420 Adams Circle, Largo, July 13 at 10 a.m. 
• B&GC: Ridgecrest, 13420 Adams Circle, Largo, July 13 at 10 a.m.
• YMCA: Ridgecrest/Tuskegee YMCA, 1801 119th St. N, Largo, July 13 at 9 a.m. 
• Barbara Ponce Library, 7770 52nd St. N, Pinellas Park, July 11 at noon. 
• Broderick Recreation Center, 6101 66th Ave. N, Pinellas Park, July 13 at 9 a.m. 
• Forbes Recreation Center, 6401 94th Ave. N, Pinellas Park, July 14 at 10 a.m. 
• B&GC: Pinellas Park, 7790 61st St. N, Pinellas Park, July 14 at 9 a.m. 
• Johnson Community Library, 1059 18th Ave. S, St. Petersburg, July 11 at noon. 7/11/2022 12:00
• Pinellas PAL – Landings, 6835 54th Ave. N, Building F, St. Petersburg, July 11 at 10 a.m.
• Police Athletic League of St. Petersburg 1450 16th St. N., St. Petersburg, July 13 at 11 a.m. 
• NFC: Sanderlin, 2335 22nd Ave. S, St. Petersburg, July 13 at 1 p.m. 
  Magnolia Day School, 2701 54th Ave. S, St. Petersburg, July 14 at 10 a.m.

Click here for more information. 

Read the article on Patch.com: https://patch.com/florida/clearwater/calendar/event/20220711/1894551/book-bus-travels-pinellas-county

Click over to WTSP.com to watch 10 Tampa Bay’s recent news story on the Summer Book Bus: https://www.wtsp.com/video/news/local/free-book-bus-aims-to-combat-summer-reading-loss-in-students/67-a242f85c-ee82-4648-808b-66fd96ff71f8

A school bus filled with books is rolling through the Bay Area giving away thousands of publications to children. 

The buses are part of the Summer Book Bus, a partnership between Pinellas County Schools and the Juvenile Welfare Board. The goal is to encourage summer reading by giving away thousands of books. 

“Just over half of our kids are reading on grade level by third grade, and that number really needs to change,” Hintz said. 

Over three weeks, the buses will visit 70 sites, servicing 5,000 kids and giving away more than 10,000 books. The sites vary from libraries and child-care centers to schools and community centers. 

“If you start early enough, and we start with really little children and get them to want to be read to or to read, then it becomes part of who they are and what they are doing each day,” stated Juvenile Welfare Board community collaborations manager Danielle Hintz.

The new books also help combat what teachers call “summer learning loss.” 

“Some don’t have books in their homes, or maybe they can go to the library to borrow books, but to be able to pick out a brand-new book to take it home and start to build their own library is just wonderful,” Hintz said. 

LINK: Click here for more information and to see where the Summer Book Bus schedule. 

Read the article and watch the video here: https://www.fox13news.com/news/childrens-library-on-wheels-cruises-through-bay-area-giving-out-10000-books

School may be out, but there’s still good reason for kids to hit the books this summer. On Monday, July 11, the Barbara S. Ponce Public Library in Pinellas Park will be giving away free books to kids throughout the area.

From 12 – 1 pm, Pinellas County’s Juvenile Welfare Board is bringing their Book Bus to the library, where kids of all ages are invited to hop aboard and pick out a free book. Advance registration is recommended to cut down on the wait time, and slots can be reserved by calling 727-369-0664.

The Barbara S. Ponce Public Library is located at 7770 52nd Street, and attendance is free and open to all. The book giveaway is part of the Juvenile Welfare Board’s commitment to making children a priority, advocating for their best interests and investing to improve their futures. A need for access to books and the urgency of developing reading skills led to the creation of JWB’s Book Bus, which tours Pinellas County, offering free books to youth throughout the summer.

Of course, the Book Bus is only one of many free events the Ponce Library puts on as part of its summer programming. Other fun experiences for children include afternoon movies, Creatures of the Deep (an exploration of the deepest, darkest zones of the ocean on June 29), free community ASL classes all summer, a chess club, a gamer guild, and an end-of-summer pool party weekend coming July 30-31. Several ocean-themed programs are worth checking out as well, including Ocean Guardians, sea creature storytimes, and Seuss Under the Sea.

Learn more about Pinellas Park’s Barbara S. Ponce Public Library and their programming here, and also check out all the great things being done by the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County.

Read the article on ILovetheBurg.com: https://ilovetheburg.com/book-bus-pinellas-park/

With Father’s Day just around the corner, there’s a relatively new program in our area dedicated to helping dads stay in their children’s lives and become more positive role models.

It’s called Gold Medal Dads — and its impact could last generations.

“This program was definitely a lifesaver for me,” said Jaycob Strubbe, a proud father of three sons.

“My world. They’re my world,” he said.

But Strubbe wasn’t always sure he’d be a good dad since he didn’t have what he considered an ideal father figure of his own growing up.

“Me knowing that, and me knowing that that’s how I was raised, I wanted to do better by my kids. So, I started learning about how I could have tools and other ways of interacting with my kids that wouldn’t require me being angry or me hitting them or me yelling at them,” Strubbe said.

That’s what led him to Gold Medal Dads — a program that started just a few months ago in Pinellas County helping men who may have themselves had absentee or abusive fathers fill that gap.

“The response has been great,” said Reggie Randolph with Healthy Families’ Father Services, which operates Gold Medal Dads.

The program provides men whose children are newborn to age 17 with the tools they need to become supportive fathers such as educational materials, home visits, referrals to other community services and resources.

“Bring them back into the families,” Randolph said. “And show them and share with them their importance.”

In April, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill setting aside $70 million for programs aimed at equipping dads with the tools they need to be better parents.

“When you take kids that do not have a father present during their upbringing the chances of them dropping out of school, getting in trouble with the law, having other difficulties, increases dramatically,” DeSantis said.

Gold Medal Dads aims to break the cycle of abuse or absenteeism by holistically helping fathers become responsible role models and an influence not just in their children’s lives but, perhaps, for generations to come.

“When you’re a kid, you don’t really see why the person you love the most and that is your superhero is treating you that way,” Strubbe said. “So, I wanted to fix that for my kids.”

Gold Medal Dads is one of several programs in Pinellas County dedicated to fostering fatherhood. For more information, people are encouraged to contact the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County or the Florida Department of Health office.

“Every day is Father’s Day,” Randolph said. “And the celebration is what we’re trying to have fathers understand and understand their importance. Not only for the children, but for our communities. We need more dads involved in our communities.”

Read the article and watch the video at https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/pinellascounty/gold-medal-dads-pinellas-county/67-b536d855-5168-41ae-874d-736d00ac6385

The summer break has just begun, but it’s not too early for families to get a jump on next school year by taking care of their child’s health screenings starting Monday, June 13.

The Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County is again offering its annual summer Back-to-School clinic services to students in kindergarten through grade 12 to prepare for the 2022-23 school year. Note that children going into pre-k are not eligible.

The school-based health clinics will provide school, sports and well child physicals, including immunizations, at no cost for clients.

Vision screenings provided by Preserve Vision Florida will be available at select locations, and basic dental services will also be available.

The last day to receive services is Monday, Aug. 8.

The services will be provided at no cost by appointment only between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the following locations:

• Boca Ciega High School Clinic: 924 58th St. S.
• Gibbs High School Clinic: 850 34th St. S.
• Largo High School Clinic: 410 Missouri Ave.
• Pinellas Park High School Clinic: 6305 118th Ave N.

For appointments, call 727-824-6900 and select menu option 4. A parent or guardian must bring the child’s immunization and medical records and be present for services. If the parent is not able to be present, a consent must be obtained prior to receiving services.

Forms are located here.

All Pinellas children entering kindergarten on Aug. 10 are required to present a school entrance physical, dated within one year of school enrollment.

DOH-Pinellas’ school-based health clinics are a partnership with the Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas County.

For more information about DOH-Pinellas, click here.

Read this article on Patch: https://patch.com/florida/largo/pinellas-county-begin-offering-physicals-immunizations-week