For nearly three years Willinda Boline and her six kids couch surfed, stayed with family, or in hotels. Boline says her financial circumstances kept her from finding a place of their own. “(Credit) scores like that was blocking me from getting a place. Me being on child tax and being on income support and, my credit wasn’t good,” she said Then Alberta Works connected her with the Hope Mission family housing program. “Point is to get them access to housing, remove some of those barriers to getting into a place and so they can get set up into a permanent long term solution,” Brenton Driedger of Hope Mission said. The team helped Boline get into a townhome in December. “Happy and grateful. We have a home now in our own space,” she said. The provincially funded program helped 53 families last year, and the help doesn’t end at putting a roof over their heads. “Families get a move into their house. We have other partnerships with Homeward Trust and others that can set them up with furnishing things, dishes, things like that. even a few grocery gift cards,” Driedger said. “If you can get people through those first few weeks, that first month until they feel established, until they’re settled in, that can make a big difference for their permanency to long term outcomes.” Boline says the home has changed her children’s lives. “Kids are happy to have their own space. They get to play around and do their own thing and we don’t have to be like, ‘Keep it down. There’s people under us.’ We’re not in a hotel anymore.” The hope is to give even more families like Boline’s a hand up in 2026.
