Every feature and every interaction with staff and volunteers persuade them to join us in our belief in their importance and potential. It is functional without being institutional, a place where parents and children stand taller. It is clean, bright, well-maintained and spacious. The Center is first-class without being luxurious. The tools are all under one roof to help them achieve it. When the parents and children enter a light-filled foyer enlivened with a wonderful stacked-stone fountain, a volunteer at the front desk smiles a warm welcome, and the struggling family gets a vision of a new way of life. “Wow!” is their usual reaction upon walking in the front door. The Center was a Naval training station that underwent a $6 million makeover to become an inviting haven for homeless families yearning for stability and success. Extraordinary possibilities are now a reality for homeless and vulnerable families in Central New Jersey. It is a unique and innovative model that is ripe for nationwide implementation. The 42,000-square-foot Family Preservation Center on our Family Campus accommodates 38 families, giving them on-site access to childcare, job training and other services designed to break the cycle of homelessness. That’s how we learned the best way to deal with the problem is to provide permanent affordable housing ourselves. HomeFront has been waging battle against these numbers for years. They would need to work at least 96 hours a week to be able to afford housing for their family – that’s over 57% of the hours in a week.įor many local families these are impossible reaches. However a full-time, minimum wage worker ($13/hour), who earns $27,040 can only afford $676 for rent. In Mercer County, this means that to rent a modest two-bedroom apartment for $ 1,628/mo, a family must earn on average $65,137 yearly (or $31.32 an hour). Housing experts advise that no more than 30 percent of a person’s gross income should be spent on housing.
Preschool teachers, emergency dispatchers, dental technicians and even reporters, as a group, earn below the housing wage. This crisis impacts not only the minimum wage worker, but also childcare workers, home health aides and security guards – the very people who make our economy hum and protect us. Many local families cannot afford to pay their rent or mortgage even though they have stable incomes. At HomeFront, we assist in lessening the barriers of homelessness from all sides, not only providing immediate emergency housing, but also working with families to find and retain affordable housing.
All children deserve a roof over their head and a place where they feel safe and secure.
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