Amy Kleem

Staff Photo by Dan Henry Pete Daffron, left, and Trish Daffron bring donated infant supplies into the current Family Promise house in Dalton on Wednesday. Family Promise recently received $40,000 in stimulus money which they are using to rent and renovate a second house so they can further assist homeless families.

DALTON, Ga. -- What might look like just an old house on Hawthorne Street holds a lot of promise.

Family Promise of Whitfield County, a nonprofit group helping homeless families, received $41,000 in stimulus funds to turn the house, which is being leased from First Baptist Church of Dalton, into a day center.

Family Promise is one of four organizations receiving a portion of $109,000 in stimulus funding awarded Dalton through the community development block grant program.

City accounting specialist Renetta Cochran said the city receives about $400,000 each year for the grant program from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But the stimulus money is a one-time event and must be spent within 120 days, she said. The money not only must go to projects for community and economic development, but the projects also must create immediate jobs, she said.

"With Family Promise, we're creating temporary jobs with the construction, but you're also creating a place to help people find jobs," said Ms. Cochran.

Family Promise board President Randall Maret said the program is specific to families. Participants are fed and housed in participating churches on a weekly, rotating basis. During the day, parents and children stay at the day center, where Mrs. Kleem develops case plans and helps parents look for jobs and address other needs.

"Our objective is to get them (participants) permanent housing and a permanent job," said Mr. Maret.

The current day center is a small house donated from the Salvation Army. Mrs. Kleem said the new house will provide an additional bathroom, more computers, a sleeping room and laundry room.

Mrs. Kleem said it can take more than 60 days for families to complete the program, considering Dalton's unemployment rate of 12.4 percent, the highest in Georgia. Family Promise has helped two families find permanent jobs and housing so far and the organization is working with two families now, she said.

Family Promise can take up to 14 people at a time and there's room now for a family of three or less, she said, but participants must pass a drug screen and background check.

The local Family Promise started in February and is a chapter of a national organization. There are six Family Promise Chapters in Georgia and several in Tennessee.

Other projects awarded through the stimulus funding include Friendship House, an income-based day care and pre-k program, which plans to renovate one classroom into two, thereby creating construction work and an additional teaching position, said Ms. Cochran.

At Northwest Georgia Family Crisis Center, transitional housing for abused women also will be renovated with the money.