Childhood should be a time of growth, learning, and stability. However, for many families facing eviction, this is all at risk. When a child loses their home, they lose more than just a roof over their head: they also lose the security and stability that are critical for their development, education, and well-being.

In this month's newsletter, we highlighted a pressing issue facing our community: older adults navigating the housing crisis.

Every year, we collect eviction data from Ada and Canyon counties over the previous year to analyze trends and determine major evictors. Year after year, we see very similar patterns: a small number of non-local property management companies are filing the vast number of evictions in the Treasure Valley.

May is always a busy month with getting Jesse Tree's name out there, kicking off with Idaho Gives. Thanks to 215 members of the Treasure Valley community, we raised $52,270 which will allow us to keep 26 families housed during an eviction.

As we continue on into 2024, we are still ramping up our resources to serve the increasing needs of families facing eviction for the first time. So far in April, we served 83 families!

Our Eviction Court team has been busy pivoting our court services back to in-person hearings this month. In March 2020, to stop the spread of COVID, eviction court moved online for the first time ever. Since then, our team has participated in virtual Zoom hearings every Tuesday and Thursday morning, resolving at least 30% of all eviction cases in the Treasure Valley.

As we get out of the winter months - a time when our kids and many others struggle with illness and mental health - it's top of mind for us that health and housing are inextricably linked.

While many of us can sleep in or stay home on snow days, the tenants we serve are often service and other low-wage workers who have to get to work no matter what, snow or shine: the folks driving the snow plow down your neighborhood street, running check-out at your local grocery store, delivering your pizza, or staffing the front desk in your office building.

As we round out the year at Jesse Tree, we are proud to say we were able to prevent eviction for 1,108 families with over 1.7 million dollars in rental assistance, mostly thanks to people like you (and that's not including our numbers from this month!).