What a difference a year makes!  Last December the unthinkable happened to Nannette and her five-year-old daughter, Neriah when a mix-up with their housing voucher left them homeless. On Christmas Eve, they slept in bunk beds in a crowded shelter with 30 strangers. Nannette has cerebral palsy and walks with a cane but she worried most about her daughter. Neriah is shy. She missed her own room and felt bullied by the older kids. So Nannette did everything she could to keep her daughter safe and focused on school.

Things began to change for the better when Nannette was connected to Families Together and met Corey, her Mentor Advocate. Corey helped Nannette navigate a daunting system while the clock was ticking to use or lose her housing voucher. It took 200 calls to landlords and an extension from the housing authority to find someone who would accept the voucher. Nannette says,

“If it wasn’t for Families Together, we would still be in the shelter. Corey is a blessing. She put our best interests first and helped me give my daughter a home.”

Nannette and Neriah moved into their own place in October. Neriah is happy and excelling in school. They look forward to celebrating a simple Christmas at home. Nannette says, “Being appreciative is all I need.” She sends her humble gratitude to everyone at Families Together for making the gift of a home possible.

Donations to Families Together between now and the end of December are being matched. Learn more here.

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We've revamped our website and are excited to share it with you! This is a completely new look for the site with beautiful pictures of some of the children and families we serve, as well as some pretty snazzy head shots of our staff team. The photographs, the content and the web design were done completely by our staff team in keeping with our commitment to put your donations where they are needed most - helping children and families affected by homelessness.

Our goal is to provide you with accessible information that's easy to read and easy to locate. We hope you'll find this makes for more enjoyable browsing experience.

The content will be changing with regular updates to our blog so please come back often. For now, you might want to check out Our Model, Our Impact and Success Stories.

Now is an exciting time. While the challenges we face are significant, we hope you share our optimism about the future and the potential to expand our impact and serve more families in need. Please feel free to reach out to us any time with questions, as well as feedback on our new website. We look forward to continuing our partnership. Together, we will continue to work for a community where all children and their families have a place to call home.

Your moral and financial support mean the world to families like Yasmine's. As an expression of her gratitude, Yasmine has shared here some of the challenges they faced and ways you and other supporters of Families Together helped them get to a better place.

All Yasmine and her husband wanted for her children was a safe and affordable place to live. But that simple dream proved elusive. Having already left an apartment complex plagued with crime, they were disheartened by the rapidly increasing level of gang activity at their new location.

Yasmine remembers, “We were harassed by our neighbors for speaking about the problems to the property manager. Garbage was left at our front door, and groups would stand behind my car so I couldn’t back out. We even had to take turns leaving work early to get the kids safely from the bus stop to our apartment.”

After her husband got into an altercation with gang members, Yasmine knew it was time to leave. “By promising not to say bad things about the complex, we were let out of our lease.” Without a place to live, the family moved into an extended stay motel. “It was cramped and it was expensive. We couldn’t save any money and it was hard to align our paydays with the weekly rent.”

Their past credit history made it hard to find another apartment, and two months later, the family was still stuck in the motel. “We tried to keep the kids’ routine as normal as possible. We’d take them to their old bus stop in the mornings and meet them in the afternoons so they could get to and from school.”

Yasmine called Social Services and was referred to Families Together. “Within a week, we had moved into a short-term apartment. That was an awesome day.” Working with their Mentor Advocate, Yasmine’s family was able to repair their credit and move into a house outside the city. The children had to change schools, but to Yasmine, it was worth it.“They miss their friends but are doing well, and attend a local after school club. We don’t have to hide inside anymore.

"Finally we feel safe."

While living in the Short-term Apartments at Families Together, Yasmine and her family enjoyed the programs and activities for both children and adults. She points to the education aspect of the program as being the most helpful. “What I learned about budgeting and working with landlords . . . that really could have helped me in the past.”

Yasmine describes the experience of homelessness as pressure-filled.

“It is stressful wondering how you’re going to get through the day, how you’re going to pay for the motel. As a parent, what you want for your children is for them to be warm, fed, safe, and have a place to sleep.”

Moving her family into a private three-bedroom apartment, even though it was temporary, was a welcome respite.

“It was good to be out of the tight space and to be living around others who were in the same situation. Everyone we worked with at Families Together was great and willing to help.”