These are exciting times at IHA.  In early 2006 the Westport Initiative for Supportive Housing (WISH) was established to accomplish the goal of creating additional permanent affordable supportive housing as set in IHA’s Strategic Plan, September 2004. The focal point of the Plan is a change in mission for IHA from an agency that primarily provides emergency shelter to an agency that is focused on supportive housing. To accomplish this IHA’s Board of Directors has accepted the goal of creating 50 new units of permanent affordable supportive housing in the communities that the agency serves.

IHA is in the process of developing The Westport Rotary Centennial House on agency-owned property located at 10 West End Avenue into 6 units.  Future plans call for development of a property owned by the Town of Westport at 655 Post Road East into 8 units of supportive housing. All of these units, located in Westport, will use the program model of Homes With Hope.

In addition to WISH IHA is working with the Westport Housing Authority on a 39-unit complex in Hales Court. Nine of these units will be controlled by IHA and operated as permanent affordable supportive housing.

The agency has chosen this new focus as a result of the lessons learned over the many years of serving our community as described in the historical perspective that follows. We continue to be devoted to the mission of our existing programs and services.

During the early 1980s it became evident that Fairfield County, like many other areas, had a growing number of men and women who were homeless. They often took refuge in churches and public places. As a first step to helping these people, a group of citizens, under the leadership of the late James Bacharach, established the Westport Community Kitchen in 1982. Soon, a corps of dedicated volunteers was serving dinner each weekday to those in need.

Since the churches and synagogues were among the first to become aware of the problem of homelessness, they led the initiative to find solutions. The numbers of homeless people continued to grow prompting the Rev. Theodore Hoskins, then the Senior Minister of the Saugatuck Congregational Church, to bring together representatives from the Westport and Weston churches and Temple Israel, along with other concerned persons, to seek ways to help the homeless.

The effort was formalized in January 1984 when the Interfaith Housing Association (IHA) was chartered as a charitable organization under Connecticut law. On August 29, 1984 IHA was granted 501(c)(3) status by the IRS.

Early in 1984, Westport town officials made the Linxweiler House at 655 Post Road East available to IHA as a transitional housing site. On December 24, 1984, IHA addressed another problem for the homeless, the need for safe emergency housing. The agency opened a men’s shelter in the former Vigilant Firehouse at 6 Wilton Road in Westport. Shortly after the shelter opened, the Community Kitchen was incorporated into the shelter operation. The shelter operated at that location until April 1989 when IHA opened the Gillespie Center in a town owned building on Jesup Road in downtown Westport. Since the fall of 1989, all IHA housing programs have operated 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

On September 3, 1993 IHA opened the Bacharach Community in three small houses on Wassell Lane in Westport as an emergency shelter for mothers and their children. Later in 1993, the organization was able to address the needs of single homeless women with the opening of Hoskins’ Place, adjacent to the Gillespie Center.

Today IHA operates an array of facilities and programs as well as providing casework for their clients. Its efforts include the Gillespie Center/Hoskins’ Place, the Community Kitchen and Food Pantry, the Bacharach Community, Linxweiler House, the Women’s Interfaith Network, PRIDE and Homes With Hope.

The Women’s Interfaith Network (WIN), a program designed to support IHA clients and other women at risk who are struggling to create stable and self-sufficient lives, opened in 1997. Through weekly one-on-one meetings, trained volunteer mentors, under the supervision of an IHA program director, offer compassion, guidance and friendship, which fosters confidence and self-reliance.

Homes With Hope, opened in the fall of 1998, is IHA’s initial program providing permanent affordable supportive housing. Formerly homeless, mentally ill individuals and families live with a lease as tenants in independent housing. They receive support from an IHA caseworker who has an office at Homes With Hope. IHA operates eight apartments in our model program located on Saugatuck Avenue in Westport.

In February of 1999, IHA launched PRIDE, an intensive job readiness program for men and women with significant barriers to employment, including mental illness, substance abuse or homelessness. This highly structured training program teaches job seeking skills and workplace expectations, builds self-esteem and explores potential employment opportunities.