Our Mission
Our mission is to help homeless families with their pursuit of self-sufficiency by providing housing, education, financial and life skills, and career enhancement opportunities.
Our History
In late 1988, Community and Faith Leaders came together when they noticed an increase in the number of families at the local soup kitchen. After a couple of meetings, they decided that a transitional housing program for families that focused on career enhancement skills and financial literacy would have the greatest impact in ensuring families’ journey to self-sufficiency.
Over the past thirty years, we have helped close to 300 families in securing stable housing. We are still in touch with founding board members to this day.
Affordable housing is almost non-existent in Montgomery County. According to the 2016 Montgomery County Self-Sufficiency standard report, a single parent with two children (pre-school and school age) must make $86,000 to afford to live in the County with no assistance. In a County where the poverty rate among women has increased by 66% since 2007 (Status of Women in Montgomery County Report), our services are more critical than ever.
We provide affordable housing and case management between 2 to 4 years for homeless families with children. When families don’t have to worry about putting a roof over their heads, they can focus on increasing income, completing educational and professional goals, putting money into savings, or paying down debt. Our program provides a tailored approach to each of our families to ensure their successes and so that they may be able to secure stable housing when they graduate the program.
We’re one of the few “Transitional” housing programs left in Montgomery County.
We provide housing, intensive case management and wrap-around services that address the specific needs if each family in our program. Many of the families in our programs have a long history of homelessness, unemployment, lack parenting and life skills, and poverty. Many have not had a home of their own and therefore need support learning how to manage a unit, with landlord / tenant issues, and being a good neighbor.
Our program focuses on helping the families identify and acknowledge the barriers that led to homelessness. We provide a tailored approach to each of our families to ensure their successes so that they may be able to secure stable housing when they graduate the program. We emphasize financial literacy and money management as well as career building. We encourage our families to increase their income every six months and work with employment counselors to meet that goal.