Children and their parents are one of the fastest-growing segments of the homeless population. Children who have to move around constantly in search of shelter tend to fall behind in school.  They can struggle to build reliable social networks that help them grow up to be confident, trusting adults. Parents in homeless families often face challenges finding or keeping work as they struggle to hold their families together. The risk of family disintegration and placement of children into foster care increases. Physical and mental trauma can be compounded.

Creating more affordable housing and linking it closely to supportive services is one effective way to help families move out of homelessness and onto pathways to self-sufficiency.

The Challenge
On any given night, more than 25,000  Washington state residents are without a safe place to sleep, and a growing number of them are families with children. In addition to the health crisis and job losses that cause families to become homeless, high housing costs in our state make market-rate rents unaffordable even for full-time employees earning the minimum wage. The result: homelessness is on the rise: in 2007, a one-night count in King County found that nearly half of the residents in homeless shelters or temporary housing were families with children.

The Hope
In studying national findings and working with local partners to determine how to best help families move beyond homelessness, we learned two key facts: (1) There is a lack of affordable housing available for families in Washington state; and (2) Families need more than a roof over their heads—they need a range of closely-linked support services to stabilize and move toward self-sufficiency.

These facts are both challenges and reasons for hope. Research indicates that an effective solution to homelessness is the combination of adequate long-term funding to create affordable housing and support services. In keeping with the foundation's investment philosophy, we hope to be a catalyst to shape long-term, broad-based solutions to homelessness for families through community-based partnerships.

In 2000, the foundation made a commitment of $40 million to launch the Sound Families Initiative, with the goal of tripling the number of service-enriched transitional housing units for homeless families in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties. We are proud to say that with the help of many partners in the public and private sectors, Sound Families achieved this goal by funding 1,445 new supportive housing units in our three target counties. The University of Washington's School of Social Work served as Sound Families' evaluation partner, and the findings are both encouraging and humbling. The work is hard, and despite the resilience of many families, their needs are often complex and challenging.

The lessons learned from Sound Families could be applied throughout our state if the dollars were more readily available. To that end, we continue to support the Washington Families Fund, a public-private partnership that is the nation's first source of dedicated long-term funding for support services tied to affordable housing for homeless families across the state. We also encourage other such partnerships that galvanize the collective will and focus resources on proven approaches to help homeless families get back on their feet.

Representative Grants

• A Sound Families grant of $302,500 to the Tacoma Rescue Mission's Adams Square Family Center for the construction and support service of 11 new transitional housing units. Adams Square Family Center will offer a total of 36 units with onsite support services for residents including child care, domestic violence counseling, and life skills programs.
  
  
• A Sound Families grant of $1.32 million to the YWCA of Seattle-King County-Snohomish County to create 48 units of permanent supportive housing in Snohomish County. Sound Families will fund supportive services and capital improvements at the existing Victorian Woods, Wear-To-Live, and Somerset Village Apartments and Community Center. The YWCA previously received funding to create 51 units of transitional and permanent supportive housing in King and Snohomish counties, all of which are now operational.