Local News
Family Promise to help area homeless
Some 1,704 people in Whitfield County are homeless or “precariously housed,” according to a count performed by the Dalton-Whitfield Community Development Corp. earlier this year.
Now, a group of area churches have signed up to take part in a national program called Family Promise that could provide shelter and other services for some homeless families.
“Specifically, this is for families with children that are homeless,” said Claas Ehlers, a Family Promise national director.
“The program takes a maximum 14 people. That’s usually three or four families,” Ehlers said. “They stay at accommodations for a week at a time,” he said.
The families will change location each week.
“The families are screened coming in, so it’s only families that are appropriate for a volunteer environment,” Ehlers said. “If there are substance abuse problems, or there is a domestic violence situation, that is not a family that we would serve,”
Ehlers said that, on average, a family stays with the program 56 days.
The key, he says, is that the program doesn’t merely provide shelter but also fellowship and help overcoming the problems that led the family to become homeless.
“We don’t want the family leaving the program until they can sustain their independence,” he said.
The program is active in more than 129 communities across the country.
“And we have 140 networks. For instance, Chattanooga runs two networks, so you have two groups of 13 churches hosting,” he said.
The program began in New Jersey in 1986 and went national in 1988.
John and Kay Peabody are co-presidents of Family Promise of Whitfield County. They’ve currently got eight churches that have volunteered to take part in the program: Varnell United Methodist Church, Evangelical Methodist Church, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Bethel AME Church, Rock Bridge Community Church, Tunnel Hill United Methodist Church, Mount Vernon United Methodist Church and Iglesia Bautista Nueva Vida.
“The first organizational meeting was May 2007,” said Kay Peabody.
She says the group hopes to start operating by the beginning of 2009. But the program calls for 13 churches in each network, so they are still looking for additional churches.
Churches that wish to participate should call John or Kay Peabody at (706) 852-9896 or send an e-mail to jnpeabody@hotmail.com.
- Local News
-
-
New Hope Middle awarded recycling cart
Recycling Ben, mascot for the Target Recycling program, presented the seventh-grade class at New Hope Middle School an award for having the highest recycling rate during the second quarter of the 2009-2010 school year.
-
Brochu: ‘They came to me and recruited me’
Whitfield County Schools Superintendent Katie Brochu didn’t apply to become superintendent of a South Carolina school district — she was recruited there, she said.
-
Murray high schools reach field use agreement
John Raley is not happy North Murray High School is being charged $200 per baseball game to play at Appalachian Community Bank Stadium, Murray County High School’s home field.
-
Dalton native earns Seabee honor
Cynthia Pendley said she and her family were “shocked” when her brother, David Akins, came home and told them he had enlisted in the Navy at age 19.
-
Name not released by Whitfield school system
The Whitfield County Board of Education is scheduled to hold a public hearing Thursday under the Georgia Fair Dismissal Act.
-
Residents wary of scams
Dalton Police cited two men on Wednesday for trying to sell magazine subscriptions for troops deployed overseas without a city license.
-
Dawn seeks to change guilty plea
A personal care home manager who was sentenced to prison for stealing drugs from senior residents has asked for a hearing to change his plea to not guilty.
-
Stephens says voters are concerned about future
Voters are very concerned “and even a little bit scared” about where the United States is going as a country, says former Georgia Senate Majority Leader Bill Stephens.
-
DPD looks for “hot” wheels
The Dalton Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating and identifying a thief who stole a set of Ballistic-brand wheels worth $3,000 from the bed of the owner’s truck on March 3.
-
Habitat groundbreaking Saturday
The groundbreaking ceremony will take place at 1791 Carter Drive on Saturday at 9 a.m. to launch the building of a home for the Edgar Gutierrez family. The George R. Johnson Foundation is sponsor for the building of this house.
- More Local News Headlines
-


