Articles for the Organization "National Center on Family Homelessness"

A Long Journey Home: A Guide for Creating Trauma-Informed Services for Mothers and Children Experiencing Homelessness

2008-07-14T09:21:33

The Long Journey Home was written as a response to some startling lessons we have learned from the field of homelessness over the last decade. It is intended to serve as a guide to agencies looking for practical ideas about how to create trauma-informed environments. It is best viewed as a template and should be supplemented by your knowledge and expertise regarding the most effective adaptations for working with families in your own program.

America's Youngest Outcasts: State Report Card on Child Homelessness

2009-08-24T01:49:35

One out of every 50 -- or approximately 1.5 million -- American children go to sleep without a home of their own every year. "America’s Youngest Outcasts: State Report Card on Child Homelessness" describes the plight of America’s homeless children. For the first time, comprehensive information about our country’s most vulnerable children is synthesized in a single report, giving us the opportunity to focus on the needs of these children and to galvanize a comprehensive response. (Authors)

Online Trauma Training

2008-07-11T04:58:10

This section of the National Center on Family Homelessness website is designed to teach you more about traumatic stress - what it is, how it effects homeless children and families, and what resources are available to help you respond sensitively to these families' needs.

Adding Seats To the Table: A Community-Based Approach To Family Homelessness

2008-07-11T04:54:54

Adding Seats to the Table: A Community-Based Approach to Family Homelessness was created to support grassroots community organizing and coalition building among homeless, formerly homeless, and at-risk families in three capitol city communities. The Fund sought to break with traditional service provision strategies by directly supporting community organizing and self-advocacy efforts among homeless, formerly homeless, and at-risk families. Although the three local groups were each distinct, their community organizing efforts displayed similar approaches, strategies, and outcomes. Common to all was the use of blended community organizing strategy that took the best aspects of different organizing models and tailored them to the uniqueness of each community. The groups learned to work in coalition and partner with other groups despite differing political perspectives. Collectively, their outreach strategies were successful not only in attracting homeless families to their organizations, but in maintaining on-going involvement. (Authors)

Ending Homelessness: The Philanthropic Role

2007-07-09T04:33:44

Homelessness became a significant social problem in the 1980s. The number of people experiencing homelessness has risen steadily to the present levels of three to four million annually—more than 1% of the population. Yet there is reason to hope that we can end homelessness within a decade. Much is known about the causes and effects of homelessness. Field-tested services and programs are available to provide safe, decent affordable housing. Stabilizing support services help people stay housed and provide needed assistance to particularly vulnerable populations. Detailed plans to eradicate homelessness have been developed at local and national levels. Community-based coalitions, governments, and foundations are poised for an historic collaboration, giving us good reason to believe we can end homelessness. Most foundations do not include homelessness among their funding priorities. Historically, only about 1% of annual giving has gone to homelessness. Most of these grants have gone toward human service programs that only ameliorate the condition of homelessness instead of ending it. Foundations that do give to homelessness represent all types—large and small, corporate, community, and family. Executive Summary,this guide outlines various strategic contributions that foundations can make to prevent and end homelessness: • Advocacy and public education to increase the understanding of homelessness, build public will, and make change to local, state, and national policies. • Community planning to bring all stakeholders to the table with the explicit purpose of ending homelessness. • Prevention programs and systems change to intervene before people become homeless. • Housing production, rehabilitation, and preservation to maintain and expand the supply of affordable housing. • Integration of fragmented systems to provide coordinated and comprehensive services. • Specialized supportive services to keep formerly homeless people housed. Hopefully, these exemplary programs will inspire more foundations to realize that ending homelessness is an integral component of their missions and prompt them to accelerate a historically minimal level of funding in this area. If all foundations engaged in human services join forces in local and national efforts, homelessness can be ended before it becomes a permanent feature of the national landscape. (Authors)

Executive Summary: America's Youngest Outcasts

2009-08-24T01:57:17

This executive summary gives an overview of the findings from "America's Youngest Outcasts: State Report Card on Child Homelessness." The summary contextualize the problem and provides a snapshot of the staggering facts uncovered in the full report.

The Minnesota Supportive Housing and Managed Care Pilot: Qualitative Evaluation Year 4

2008-07-11T04:42:31

The Supportive Housing and Managed Care Pilot (the pilot) is a demonstration project designed to engage state and county governments with community agencies and participants in addressing the problem of long-term homelessness. The pilot provides affordable housing and other supports necessary to help people with long histories of homelessness lead healthier lives in the community. The pilot serves single adults and families whose histories of homelessness are exacerbated by other difficulties such as medical problems, mental illness, chemical dependency, and histories of trauma. This year’s qualitative report attempts to shed increased light on issues affecting the long-term stability of participants.