The money
The three-year budget, what a gift buys at the real year-one cost, the first twelve months in order, and where it goes from there.
The money
Year one costs $438,500, of which $47,100 is expected in kind — so the cash to be raised is $391,400. Roughly $118,700 of the year is one-time startup: deposits, furnishing two houses from empty, equipment, incorporation and initial insurance.
| Category | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personnel | $214,800 | $564,100 | $799,600 |
| Occupancy | $95,800 | $185,200 | $251,400 |
| Direct participant services | $42,600 | $97,900 | $168,600 |
| Administration | $70,500 | $92,000 | $131,000 |
| Development & marketing | $14,800 | $34,000 | $50,000 |
| Total | $438,500 | $973,200 | $1,400,600 |
$292
cost per bed-night, year one, at ramp occupancy
$163
steady-state cost per bed-night at five houses
15
veterans housed in year one, 61 by year three
0%
federal revenue in year one — we are not yet eligible
Year one assumes zero federal dollars. VA Grant and Per Diem — the anchor of the long-term budget — requires an IRS determination letter we do not yet hold. Private and local funding is the only thing that opens the first beds, and opening them is what makes us competitive for the federal funding that sustains them.
Year one cost per bed-night is the least attractive number in the package, and it is real. Ninety-two percent of the first year is fixed cost carried by a partial year of occupancy. It falls to roughly $163 at steady state. We publish the ramp figure rather than the flattering one.
What a gift buys
Every tier below is priced at the Year 1 cost of $292 a bed-night — the ramp figure, not the steady-state one.
The first twelve months
Articles filed, bylaws adopted, Form 1023 prepared. Three directors to start, five by month three.
Written agreements with at least three partners and a screened waiting list — the occupancy plan depends on this and is gated on it.
Program manager, case manager, women's program advocate and executive assistant onboard and trained before a resident arrives.
Address unpublished from day one. Awake overnight staffing from the first night.
Program reaches eleven veteran beds. Conditional on state and city awards landing on schedule; if either slips, this moves to month ten and we say so.
Determination unlocks VA Grant and Per Diem eligibility for the next cycle. First outcome report published to funders and board.
Where it goes
The launch years set ratios that expansion never dilutes: case managers at one to twelve, residential aides at one and a half full-time equivalents per house staffed awake overnight, women's program staff at roughly one per two and a half women's houses.
| Year | Houses | Veteran beds | Women's share | Veterans served |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 2 | 11 | 36% | 15 |
| Year 3 | 5 | 26 | 46% | 61 |
| Year 5 | 9 | 48 | 42% | ≈103 |
| Year 10 | 19 | 103 | 39% | ≈240 |
The Year 5 and Year 10 rows are pre-rebuild planning figures. They were computed before a staffing correction that raised residential aide requirements at scale, and the staffing cost in them is known to be low — by roughly ten full-time equivalents at Year 10. They are shown for direction, not as settled numbers, and are being rebuilt. Year 1 and Year 3 are current as printed.
At year ten the organization supplies roughly a fifth of the county's shelter gap as the Continuum of Care measured it in 2025, and has housed approximately 1,200 veterans over the decade. That denominator moves every year with the count, so any share we quote carries the year it is drawn from. Growth pauses at written gates when the numbers say pause.
