One Family is a not-for-profit organization devoted to ending family homelessness in Massachusetts.

The Issue

If you are part of a family of three earning more than $17,170 per year in this country, the federal government considers you to be “not poor.” ^[1] However, if you happen to live in Massachusetts on that salary, then your family, if not homeless already, is likely in the midst of a housing crisis. Escalating housing costs in the state are leaving an estimated 10,500 families, including some 20,000 Massachusetts children daily either homeless or heading in that direction, for an annual income of $64,000 is needed for a family of three to live in Boston unsubsidized and meet its basic needs ^[2].

Family homelessness is a relatively new and alarming phenomenon that is spinning out of control. Within the last twenty years, Massachusetts has gone from two to over 90 shelters – a result of skyrocketing housing, healthcare and childcare costs. Millions of public dollars are spent here on emergency services, not on prevention and solutions. While it costs $47,000 annually to house a family in shelter, the average cost for prevention and rapid re-housing for that family is $1,707 annually ^[3].

The Answer

One Family Inc. has created a two-pronged, replicable and measurable approach to ending family homelessness in Massachusetts: Systems Change and the One Family Scholars program. The long-term solution lies in strategies that promote economic independence and create affordable housing. One Family’s Systems Change strategy includes working to implement a Housing First strategy to keep families in their homes or move them quickly to permanent housing, creating the stability that families need to enable them to focus on self-sufficiency. This will be achieved by:

· Shifting state government from managing homelessness to ending it via the newly formed Massachusetts Commission to End Homelessness, of which One Family is a member
· Creating grassroots support for change
· Fostering the creation and implementation of long-term solutions

Higher education is the best permanent pathway out of poverty. The One Family Scholars (OFS) program provides scholarships for low-income and formerly homeless mothers to attend college. Selection is based on academic promise, leadership potential, demonstrated work ethic, and financial need. To date, Scholars have an 85% year-to-year academic retention rate, much higher than the 55% national average for all public college and university students, 24% for college students from low-income families ^[4], and 16% for community college students^[5]. Their overall grade point average is 3.03, compared to the national average of 2.97. Scholars are graduating the program and moving into family sustaining careers. Currently, OFS has an 81% job-placement rate and the average Scholar Graduate salary is $34,220 – an almost 300% growth from pre-program earnings. Finally, a key indicator of self-sufficiency is a reduced reliance on state and federal benefits: in 2006, the average Scholar was utilizing $13,412 annually in benefits (TAFDC, SSI/SSDDA, Housing Subsidy, Food Stamps and Childcare Vouchers) before entering OFS. At the same time, the average Scholar Graduate was utilizing only $2,771 in benefits ($1,959 in Housing Subsidy annually and $812 in Childcare Vouchers annually.) This represents a $10,641 average annual reduction in benefit usage for each Scholar Graduate. The benefits of the One Family Scholars program are immediate and also multi-generational: Scholar children are more motivated to succeed in school and are in fact improving their own school performance.

[1] US Dept. of Health and Human Services

[2] The Self-Sufficiency Standard for MA, MassFESS, 2007

[3] The Center for Social Policy, UMass-Boston, 2007

[4] Postsecondary Education Opportunity (www.postsecondary.org), Thomas Mortenson, Higher Education Policy Analyst and Senior Scholar for the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, from a 2004 study of students from families earning under $35,000 pursuing degrees.

[5] Boston Globe; The New College Try, April 17, 2006