Genesis Home was established in 1989 by members of Durham Congregations in Action (DCIA) who recognized a need to provide shelter and supportive services for whole family units experiencing homelessness in the community. 

At that time, the creation of such a shelter was extremely progressive; most emergency and transitional shelters tended to serve only single men and women.  While many Genesis Home families have been continuously homeless or struggle with disabling conditions, by nature of being an intact family unit they do not meet HUD’s criteria, and therefore are unable to participate in most of Durham’s community programs without a forced separation of their family.   

Armed with this knowledge about a significant gap in services for homeless families, Genesis Home’s founders spent months obtaining a facility to house the program and the seed funds needed to begin housing families. On February 1, 1989, Genesis Home officially opened its doors to five families, which was the maximum program capacity at that time. Each family had their own room and the entire house shared two community bathrooms, a common living area and kitchen, and one washer and dryer.  As these initial living conditions were cramped and left little room for privacy; many families were choosing to leave the program earlier than was recommended.  However, Genesis Home’s services were still in high demand and it took little time to fill empty rooms with families in need.

In 1996, Genesis Home began a capital campaign to build a new facility that would not only double the shelter’s capacity, but would create a more comfortable environment for the families that would be living there.  The following year the new house, which is still in use today, was completed.  Genesis Home’s second building can currently accommodate twelve families (45 beds), each in a privet suite that includes a bath and two bedrooms.  Residents still share a common living room, kitchen, and dining room; however, the new suite-style arrangement offers much more space than the original house, so we are able to provide adequate space for families with several children.

Another important transition related to staffing occurred in 1996.  Supportive case management has always been the backbone of Genesis Home’s program.  However, with the opening of a new facility which more than doubled the home’s capacity, several key changes needed to take place to ensure that comprehensive case management support was offered to every family.  This required a reorganization of Genesis Home’s staffing pattern from one live-on 24 hour a day/7 day a week case manager to two full time family services coordinators and several evening and weekend part-time program assistants.  Since 1996, Genesis Home’s staffing pattern related to the Family Matters program has remained fairly consistent.  Currently, the program is supported by two day-time case managers and nine evening and weekend program assistants

Since opening our doors in 1989, we are proud to have enabled over 350 families to successfully reunite, get off the streets, and live independently.  Over the past five years, 75 percent of our families and young people have successfully retained their permanent housing for at least six months after graduating from Genesis Home.  While our data is quite positive, we believe that our heightened ability to provide follow-up supportive services after graduation will allow that percentage to increase over the next several years.