About Us
Families Forward Philadelphia’s mission is to help families experiencing homelessness become healthy, productive, and self-reliant. We treat all members of the family with dignity and respect; help them recover from the effects of homelessness; and assist parents in obtaining and maintaining permanent housing.
Families Forward operates the largest emergency shelter for families experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia, including serving single fathers and teenage boys. We take great pride in keeping families together during difficult times, helping them navigate the way back home by offering housing, comfort, support, and hope. Our family residence (emergency shelter) serves 65 families at a time, each in their own separate room; a feature unique to Families Forward. In addition to the family residence, Families Forward operates 75 units of transitional and permanent supportive housing units mostly in West Philadelphia.
As an organization, we believe in working with the entire family, not just the head of household, to ensure that individual goals and family unit goals are achieved synergistically. To do so, it is imperative that we keep families together; relationships are key and remain a primary focus of the organization’s work. We strive with commitment to build trust, not just provide transactional service. Yes, housing affects almost everything, but simply providing vulnerable families housing is not enough—we value relationships and understand the necessity of providing supportive services that help families meet their basic, educational, workforce, and well-being needs.
What makes us effective in helping families lift themselves out of homelessness is our approach to comprehensive supportive services that complement physical shelter and housing. We think of our supportive services in four buckets: case management, workforce development, education, and agency supports—these buckets represent needs of our families that are not otherwise being met and must be addressed in achieving self-sufficiency.
Our Families
Last fiscal year (7/1/20 – 6/30/21) the organization served:
- 244 families
- 683 individuals (parents + children)
- 433 children
- 224 children birth to 5 years
- 209 children ages 6-17
- 69 youth ages 18-24
Of those served, 61% (420) were female and 39% (263) were male.
The families in our care come from all over the city of Philadelphia; they come to us from the City of Philadelphia’s central intake system for homeless services. Geographically, our emergency shelter and most of our community housing units reside in West Philadelphia neighborhoods. Families Forward’s target population is families experiencing homelessness. This is defined as single parents and spouses with children.