Emergency Shelter Program

Families Moving Forward is unique because of the way our services are delivered: Overnight shelter is provided by volunteers from 42 congregations at the congregation sites.

Typically each congregation hosts our families for several weeks during the year. In most of these congregations, each family has a private sleeping room. Everything that each family needs for the week is provided by the volunteers from the congregation: food, beds, and fellowship. During the day the families in our shelter make our Day Center at 1808 Emerson Avenue North their home base, going to and from school or jobs, looking for employment and housing, caring for preschoolers.

The Day Center has facilities for bathing, doing laundry, cooking and eating, playing, reading, watching TV and doing homework. Families Moving Forward staff provides professional advocacy as well as informal guidance and support as families seek permanent housing, employment and carry out other responsibilities.

We are also unique because of the way we think about our clients. Our congregational volunteers generally think of their place of worship as an extension of their home and their fellow volunteers as an extension of their family. This is why the families we serve are called our "guests" and why our staff and volunteers work very hard to make our shelter as welcoming as possible.

Families Moving Forward is also different because much of our funding comes from private contributions: donations from individuals, families, congregations, corporations and foundations. We receive some funding from counties or other government entities.  

Families Moving Forward provides emergency shelter for an average of eight families at a time. In 2009 the emergency shelter served 191 individuals, in 55 families; of these individuals, 63% were children; nearly half the children were under six years old. Over 15 years, we have served more than 1,000 families, more than 3,500 people.

Of all the families who exited the emergency shelter in 2009, 58 percent moved from the shelter to permanent housing or long-term transitional housing. Counting only those families who completed the Families Moving Forward program, 92 percent moved to permanent housing or long-term transitional housing.