AHFM Purpose and Mission: AHFM is committed to making available and/or maintaining decent, safe and affordable housing for the very low income population.  We fulfill our mission by providing rental assistance, rental deposit assistance as well as offering a home repair program to economically disadvantaged adult families, the elderly and/or disabled. AHFM History: AHFM was formulated in 1989 by Board Member Janet Becker.  Janet Becker not only pioneered the concept of Adequate Housing for Missourians, she also pioneered the Housing Trust Fund Agencies that are in our existence both locally and state-wide today. Through her vision we have been able to help thousands of families obtain and/or maintain their permanent housing since 1989. Why Affordable Housing? “Good housing incubates good families, and good families incubate good citizens. Bad housing incubates bad families, and bad families incubate bad citizens. If you are not prepared to believe this, stop reading now. Whether or not sociologists can prove that proposition, those of us who have worked up close with properties know it to be true. So whether you come to affordable housing with your heart (helping those who need it) or with your head (making society better and safer for all of us), if you believe that housing incubates family, then you must conclude it is worth sustaining. And affordable housing does not occur naturally in nature. Housing, like any business, is an economic organism: it must bring in enough money to cover its costs, or it dies. Left to its own devices, the private market makes housing 'affordable' by eliminating maintenance to lower costs and squashing people together to raise their rent-paying ability until the economics balance. For more than two thousand years, ever since human beings came together in cities, the private market has been ruthlessly effective in making this. It is called a slum. And slums not only breed disease, they breed misery, violence, and eventually riots. We can do better. Since early times, affordable housing has been the province of religious institutions, charities, and governments. In each case well-meaning people have contributed time and money to create what does not occur in nature: market-quality housing for people who cannot afford market prices.”* Housing Assistance Program (HAP): AHFM provides the intervention necessary to prevent homelessness as well as provides the vehicle to obtain permanent housing as follows: • Assist families in crisis (medical emergencies, job loss, etc.) by providing rental assistance.  This helps to prevent the family falling victim to homelessness.  (our goal is to assist approximately 100 families with emergency rental assistance annually) • Assist families whose incomes are below the 25% area median income as well as assist the Elderly and the Disabled by providing rental deposit assistance.  This resource helps those on a fixed income make the transition from sub-standard housing into decent, safe and affordable housing.  (our goal is to assist approximately 100 families with rental deposit assistance) • Assist owner occupied homeowners with correcting minor home repairs before they reach catastrophic status.  (our goal is to assist approximately 14 very low income, owner occupied homeowners with correcting minor repairs or code violations in their homes) • AHFM provides emergency rental assistance to the following counties:  St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles, Pike, Shelby, Marion, Macon, Ralls, Montgomery, Warren, Lewis, Lincoln