This year has tested us in ways we never anticipated, as housing emergencies have devastated our financial reserves. We are navigating a lengthy and stressful insurance claims process while four of our housing units have been uninhabitable for part of the year, generating no income, and our operational expenses continue to rise. Simultaneously, the costs of maintaining safe, decent housing—utilities, repairs, compliance, staffing—have increased far beyond what our current revenue model can sustain.

These converging pressures have created a cash flow crisis that threatens everything we've built together over the years.Three unstoppable forces have placed us in a dire situation: 

1.    Fewer people are donating to any charity. Tax law changes in 2017 removed the deductibility of charitable donations for many of our supporters. As a result, the rate of donations to Homes First has declined. The number of donors supporting our mission declined by 7.5% in just the last year. 

2.    Costs are rising. Supercharged by the pandemic, inflation on materials and labor has risen by 26% just since 2020. Tariffs on the very goods needed to make our houses livable will only increase these costs further in the months ahead. 

3.    We’ve had terrible luck. In just 2025 one property had a fire, another a flood, and a third structural damage from a tree fall. These expenses (and associated loss of tenant income) are impacting us now, the insurance payments still haven’t come in. Even when they do, many of our repair costs won’t be covered.