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Homes for the Homeless (HFH) is the nation's largest provider of
residential, education and employment training centers�serving over 630
homeless families and over 1,200 homeless children each day at five
separate sites across New York City. Dubbed American Family Inns,
these sites function as communities of opportunity,
carefully integrating a network of on-site education, employment and
family support services that address the multiple causes of
homelessness.
HFH is dedicated to reducing
homelessness and poverty by providing families with the education and
training that will enable them to build independent lives. The
first step in this effort is to recognize that homelessness today is
not simply a housing issue, but instead is an education issue and a
children's issue. Families on welfare, usually headed by young
single mothers with two children, make up the fastest growing segment
of the homeless population. Homeless children, already twice as likely
to repeat a grade and four times as likely to drop out of school as
their non-homeless peers, are likely to continue the cycle of poverty
and homelessness when they grow up if they do not receive appropriate
services and support.
The network of services within an
American Family Inn is designed to assist parents and children overcome
these obstacles to long-term stability. Each Inn hosts a virtual
"main street," or primary public space, off of which there are a number
of workshop rooms, classrooms, computer labs, and daycare areas. A
mother walks down the hall to drop her child off in daycare while
attending GED class and later picks her child up after finishing her
internship in the afternoon. Just like in any community, you see
children catching the school bus in the morning and getting dropped off
in the afternoon, parents going to work either on or off site, doctors
and nurses from the on-site clinic walking down the hall, teachers
preparing lessons and activities for the after-school play, assistant
teachers organizing the library, young children lining up to go outside
to the playground, professionals making presentations and leading
discussions in group sessions, and computer trainings and GED testing
taking place. All of this is under one roof, the roof of an American
Family Inn, a community of opportunity. At the end of a family's time
here, parents are more connected to their children, children are more
connected to their parents, parents are more connected to resources,
and the family is on a path of permanent independence.
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