Emergency Shelter

Our rotational shelter program and warm hospitality is the foundation of the Family Promise model.

This innovative model — using existing space like congregations and volunteers motivated by compassion —has helped hundreds of thousands of children and adults in our national network of 200+ Affiliates.

Working with community resources, Affiliates provide comprehensive and targeted services, including extensive case management, at 1/3 the cost of traditional shelters.

And it works.

On average, 83% of the people served in the shelter program secure housing within 12-14 weeks. Because of the depth of services and community support, families stay housed, and Affiliates provide both prevention and stabilization services to increase their impact.

Across this country, communities offer hospitality to families through Family Promise Affiliates.

Through our Pathway Towards Independence Program, a rotational shelter model, the beneficiaries are families and children who find themselves in a crisis situation and are without a permanent home.

Our shelter program is a last resort for families who are unable to successful divert, and gives qualifying families a secure place to live.

The Pathway Towards Independence Program provides wrap-around continuum of care services tailored to homeless families and their children through a collaborative network of community resources. This holistic crisis response system ensures each family has a place where they can feel safe and supported until permanent housing is identified.

In the greater Concord area (to include the surrounding towns of Boscawen, Bow, Chichester, Epsom, Henniker, Hopkinton and Pembroke), we partner with a diverse group of 13 interfaith congregations who fully support our mission to help needy and low-income families.

Our rotational shelter model allows each host site to safely provide qualifying families with overnight accommodations and meals for a week at a time, four weeks each year. Each congregation has as many as 40 trained volunteers to serve families and children who are without a permanent place to call home.

Family Promise of Greater Concord is only one of 2 shelters in the greater Concord area whose primary focus is on homeless families with children.

HOW IT WORKS

Families move on a weekly basis from host site to host site. Volunteers from that site provide dinner and help to set up a space for each family. Families then wake up to breakfast, also provided by the volunteers, while they play out their day.

And our volunteers are the core of the program. They share food, spend the night, play with children and lend their passion and expertise to help families get back on their feet. They prove that motivated people can solve family homelessness. And, in the process, they truly create “home” – and a community – for families who have no place left to turn.

THE RESOURCE CENTER IS WHERE FAMILIES GO TO...

meet with case managers one-on-one
learn to budget
have free WIFI and computer access for employment and apartment searches
do laundry and take showers
have a safe place for kids to play
have a quiet place for kids to finish homework
have an address to mail important documents
gain connection to other community resources

A COMMUNITY RESPONSE

In every community, these core elements exist. By bringing the community together on the issue of family homelessness, Family Promise addresses a major social problem in a holistic, effective way. Once the community becomes engaged, people understand the root causes of family homelessness and take steps to address them.

A LONG-TERM SOLUTION

Not only does our 83% success rate mean many more families stably housed, it is also a tremendous cost saving to the community as diversion from far more expensive interventions. Our approach of keeping families together, identifying their strengths, and partnering with the community for solutions means that families are at much lower risk of returning to homelessness.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Family Promise of Greater Concord changes lives, one family at a time.

From 2015-2022 through our Pathway Towards Independence shelter program we have helped 72 families and 112 children under 18 (a total of 250 individuals), giving them the ability to realize their true potential. We also change the lives of our 400+ compassionate volunteers, giving them a meaningful outreach right in their own community.