Our community impact

As the largest non-profit dedicated solely to housing homeless families in Wake County, Families Together has a significant responsibility in addressing the crisis in student homelessness.

Here’s a snapshot of the outcomes last year through effective community collaboration.

Financial empowerment

Families Together provides each family with access to our experts who work to help them increase financial stability and obtain better-paying jobs.

Who We Help

We serve homeless families with children. Nearly half of the individuals in the families we serve are children under the age of 12. Nearly 80% are African American and 100% come to us homeless with no stable roof overhead. Approximately 25% of the women we serve are escaping the physical and psychological harm of a domestic violence situation. All grapple with the psychological and emotional trauma of homelessness. Most of the families we serve are headed by a single woman. Here’s a snapshot of who we helped last year.

WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT 

Families Together is unique in that we serve families where there is a father or older male child that could otherwise fall through the gaps in our community’s safety net. Our Emergency Shelter, Bridge Housing and other interim housing solutions enable families most likely to be separated, to remain together while permanent housing is obtained.

 Additionally, our work is driven by our professional team of Mentor Advocates who are trained in the principles of trauma-informed care and who offer compassionate support to help each family achieve self-sufficiency. As housing experts, Families Together leverages our network of landlords, advocates for families to ensure housing is safe and dignified, and liaises between the landlord and family, as needed, to ensure they are set up for long-term housing success.

COLLABORATION WORKS 

We know that homelessness cannot be solved while operating in a silo so we coordinate closely with our partners to avoid duplication of effort and ensure families in crisis receive the best of care. By coordinating with other service providers, businesses, faith groups, and our government, we develop and implement solutions that have long-term, maximum collective impact. In the last five years, we have housed over 350 families, moving them from homelessness to home.

Hotels to Housing

Families Together partnered with Wake County in two community programs responding to the COVID-19 crisis for families in motels. One was for families that were literally homeless and had an underlying health condition that put them at higher risk in congregant shelters - which were already at capacity and had to reduce their shelter space to adhere to safer social distancing practices. The other was for families that were in motels when the pandemic hit, lost jobs due to the shutdown and were likely to lose their housing in motels.  The goal of these programs was to ensure families did not lose their motel rooms before permanent housing was located. As a lead provider of case management and housing support, Families Together served 70 families in this community emergency response effort.

Wake Affordable Housing Coalition

Families Together co-led with Habitat for Humanity of Wake County, the formation of a new coalition called the Wake Affordable Housing Coalition (WAHC) — an assembly of nonprofit organizations working together to expand housing opportunities throughout Wake County. WAHC advocates for strategies that further our shared goal of housing affordability for all. Our members are local nonprofit organizations that focus on making affordable housing available. They include Habitat of Wake County, DHIC, Passage Home, Raleigh Area Land Trust, CASA, and Triangle Family Services. Our first goal as a coalition was to win passage of the Raleigh Housing Bond, and on November 3, 2020, the Bond passed with more than 70% voting yes.

Wake County Continuum of Care

Families Together is a lead housing provider in our community’s Continuum of Care for people experiencing homelessness. We collaborate with our partners in the Coordinated Access System, which is called HOUSE WAKE!, to ensure everyone experiencing a housing crisis has fair and equal access to a system that will rapidly identify, assess, prioritize, refer and connect them to housing and services for which they qualify based on their needs. The goal is to move as quickly as possible from homelessness to home utilizing a Housing First approach.