At 25, Lafayette homeless center faces growing need

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) - About three weeks separated Kara Crowder-Hoffman from homelessness.

It was two decades ago and the then 19-year-old was caring for her two children - one almost 2 and the other a few weeks old - after leaving her drug-addicted husband.

With no income, soon to be kicked out of her apartment, she had nowhere to go.

That's when she got the phone call that changed everything. It was Jennifer Layton, then a case manager at Lafayette Transitional Housing Center, calling to let Crowder-Hoffman know she'd been fast-tracked into one of the center's housing programs.

"If I had not been accepted into the program, I would not have made it this far," Crowder-Hoffman told the Journal & Courier (http://on.jconline.com/1wYj7hZ). "It gave me a direction."

These days Crowder-Hoffman is a Purdue University alumna and a proud homeowner. In 2013, she opened her own business, Fowler-based pet groomer Little Shop of Howlers.

"She's really moved everything full circle and is doing what she's passionate about," Layton said. "We've got lots of those stories."

Formed in 1989 by a mostly volunteer staff, Lafayette Transitional Housing Center has since ballooned, coming to encompass several programs aimed at supporting Greater Lafayette's homeless population.

Layton was fresh out of college when she joined the organization 20 years ago. She had spent six months selling insurance before applying for an open case manager job. Crowder-Hoffman was one of her first clients.

The center could serve only about eight families at the time Layton came on board. Now 60 people can be housed in the center's programs. In addition to housing, the center operates a day center and food pantry that last year served more than 19,000 people.

The organization's growth gives a window into Greater Lafayette's shifting social service landscape. It's nearly impossible to measure homelessness. But other measures indicate the population the center serves is growing.

Since the organization's birth, poverty rates have jumped, according to U.S. Census data - moving from 16,404 Tippecanoe residents below the poverty line, or 14 percent, in 1990, to nearly 39,000 people, or 22 percent, in 2013.

And food insecurity rates have skyrocketed. In 2000, there were 5,023 Tippecanoe County clients in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. In 2011, there were more than 17,000. Twenty years ago, 72 percent of Lafayette School Corp. parents paid for their child's meals. By 2014-15, a similar number of students - 69 percent - were receiving financial assistance through the free and reduced lunch program.

"Look how much the landscape really has changed," said Layton, who became the center's executive director in 2007.

As those demographics continue to grow, so do the center's efforts to meet that need.

Since the organization's beginning at 731 Main St., the center has purchased seven properties as its programs expanded. It's relocated its headquarters twice - first to a building on Elizabeth Street and then again in 2007 to Howarth Center, where it remains.

Layton said she's now looking for more office space to accommodate the center's staff of 13.

Assistant executive director Ginger Hooper started at the center in 1998. At that time, the organization had a budget of $579,000, she said.

"We're now up to $1.38 million," Hooper said. "That's a 238 percent budget increase. That kind of reflects how the needs have changed in the community, how greater the problem has become."

Hooper said the organization has evolved to meet the changing needs. She doesn't expect that to stop anytime soon.

"I do see us continually growing," Ginger said. "I do see us continually changing. I think we're still going to do just what we have been doing but we're going to change with the needs of the community."

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Information from: Journal and Courier, http://www.jconline.com