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GREENSBORO — As soon as she heard about the $1 million bequest to another local nonprofit to help the homeless, the director of the Greensboro Housing Coalition felt like celebrating as well.

"I went around the office and … we started cheering because of the numbers of families this will really help," said Beth McGee-Huger, whose agency is a major player, along with the Greensboro Urban Ministry, in fighting homelessness in Guilford County.

The money from the estate of Nancy Richmond Hudson, a former Urban Ministry volunteer, will help remove a hurdle families face while seemingly trapped at the Urban Ministry's Pathways Center.

The center is one of only a few options available in the city for housing homeless families as they attempt to regain their footing. The bequest money would be used to more quickly move the families from this family-style homeless shelter to apartments or homes of their own.

"They do their best to make this nice, but I'm used to being able to have my own apartment," said Venetta, a 24-year-old mother of five who arrived at Pathways a week ago.

She didn't want to use her name because she didn't want her children to be picked on and she admits she's ashamed of living in a shelter.

Venetta says her problems boil down to losing jobs because she didn't have dependable child care and a $400 unpaid utility bill.

She wants to work and she wants to be able to teach her children how to budget and manage a household.

"I wish people could walk in my shoes on a day to day basis," she said.

"Beyond Pathways," an idea discussed last year by the agency's board of directors, will emphasize moving families into more permanent housing and will provide case management and support to help prevent further homelessness.

It fills a gap in local services by addressing some of the actual financial needs of these families, such as past utility bills or providing security deposits and first month's rent.

"That can really keep people homeless much longer than it makes any sense at all," McGee-Huger said. "If people lose their housing, they've got accumulated bills that they owe from when they lost it. They're trying to get back into housing ... but without being able to pay those old bills they often can't get a new landlord to rent to them. If they can't pay the old utilities, they can't get the utilities in a new place."

The rooms they now occupy are then freed up for other families needing a place to live.

"We get so many calls from people needing housing and you hear the desperation in their voices," said Mark Sumerford, director of the Pathways Center, which is a dorm-style temporary shelter for families.

At last count, there were 39 families on the waiting list, which has been steadily growing. In 2007, 248 families applied for shelter at Pathways — a 10 percent increase over the previous year. Their average length of stay was 101 days. The average length of time on the waiting list was about seven weeks.

"They are hanging on wherever they can — sometimes in motel rooms, sometimes with family or friends, sometimes going between place to place or living where they can and their children with someone else," Sumerford said. "This is supposed to be an emergency service, yet we have to tell them it may take six to eight weeks to get them in."

The new program piggybacks on efforts with the community's Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness and the national Housing First model, which says the way to end homelessness is by putting people in housing first, and then providing services to them.

The Rev. Mike Aiken, Urban Ministry's executive director, expects "Beyond Pathways" to assist possibly 60 families a year when it's fully operational at an annual cost of $500,000. The estimated cost of "rapidly rehousing and stabilizing" each family is about $5,000 and will eventually require additional money.

An essential part of the Beyond Pathways program also is matching a family up with a hope team from faith communities or civic groups or whoever would like to be a support system around that family.

"So having all those hope teams involved will open their eyes to a broad range of our community so they will understand the problems of homelessness in a whole new sense," McKee-Huger said.

"If they're helping 'Suzie' sign up for food stamps and look for furniture for a new apartment they've helped her move into, they will learn a different side of life if they're never known it before."

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com