Your Gifts Keep FAITH

In June 2024, we asked you to help replenish funds for the Financial Assistance in Times of Times of Hardship or FAITH program to assist our team in their time of need.  Thanks to your support, we raised over $50,000. 

Your gifts could not have come at a more critical time.  In this fiscal year alone, we’ve already disbursed over $27,000 in need-based aid and there are still three months remaining in the fiscal year.  We are now on pace to exceed the amount of need-based aid we disbursed at the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Over the years the FAITH program has helped staff who faced serious illness.  One year we helped a staff member after a fire in their home.  We’ve paid to have cars repaired so that our staff could get to work and covered utility bills to keep the heat and lights on.  When disruption early in the Covid pandemic led to some staff being furloughed, the FAITH program covered the employee portion of their health insurance.  But by far, the largest share of support we give is to keep our employees housed.  This need has only grown over time.

According to the Dane County Regional Housing Strategy’s 2024 – 2028 Action Plan, Dane County is currently growing faster than housing units are being created, driving up costs.  The report states that to be affordable, housing and transportation costs together should not exceed 45% of total income.  But in Dane County, 75% of cities and villages have average costs exceeding that threshold. 

Given these statistics, it’s probably no surprise that almost 90% of the FAITH funds we’ve disbursed over the last twelve months have been focused on procuring housing for employees or helping keep staff in their current homes.  Housing instability is incredibly stressful, but thanks to you we have never had to turn down a FAITH request due to insufficient program funds.  Just look at what your support means to our team and their families:

Thanks to your generosity, we can help our staff with a fundamental need freeing them to concentrate on their important job of caring for our residents.  Together, we truly do enhance the living experience.