Our housing program’s innovation stems from taking homeless women and their children from impoverished neighborhoods and conditions and placing them into a healthy environment, upscale neighborhood conducive to establishing healthy outcomes for their families. Using the guiding principles from the Gender Responsive Strategies evidence based research created by Dr’s Bloom & Owens, TFCF creates an environment through site selection, staff selection, program development, content, and material that reflects an understanding of the realities of women’s lives and addresses the issues of trauma they have experienced. Unlike others, they address root causes of homelessness like affordability, eligibility and credibility.

Our familymodel is replicable with proven outcomes helping families reach self-sufficiency. Research shows that our success is heightened because of the blended family dynamic within one household creating that healthy family and fostering positive relationships for children. Reversing the effects of poverty requires a social model that creates a paradigm shift enabling our families to shift into healthy behaviors, attitudes and increased education.

TFCF’s uniqueness is highlighted by the fact that they provide both direct services and advocacy. Normally, non-profits focus on one or the other. Moreover, this is truly innovative to have a leadership development program whose main objective is to train homeless women as advocates to work with and for those concerns that directly impact them and their children. It has been proven that when a woman is empowered to change her own circumstances, the ripple effect is helping her children to succeed and her community to blossom. These women learn the fundamentals of how to analyze the political landscape, engage governments and legislators, (federal, state and local), and use the power of the vote to impact the policies and laws most affecting them. The program is built on the belief that everybody has the opportunity to change the course of their life and should be civically engaged to better the society we live in. 

In San Bernardino County, the few homeless shelter providers we have address the issue of homelessness as a cause and not as the symptom of a much larger social issue. Because these families are mostly people of color, low-income and undereducated, they do not receive high quality treatment and services. We on the other hand, provide a selection process for our population that is non-discriminatory regarding access to public welfare or other funding sources, but inclusive to all women despite their ineligibility and other disqualifications. 

In addition, TFCF is very structured and provides homeless individuals with life changing programs and services (stated above) to help them transition from homelessness to self-sufficiency. Other homeless providers’ timelines range from 0-30 days of housing regardless of the client’s ability to transition into permanent housing, whereas TFCF assists families up to 12 months, allowing them to complete a series of benchmarks necessary to accomplish self-sufficiency. Once clients graduate from our program, they are capable of maintaining their personal households, accessing resources, and providing for their children’s well-being. We teach our women to become civically engaged in the community, giving them an opportunity to dialogue with local elected officials about their different needs and issues such as barriers to: eligibility to low-income housing, credibility, affordability and healthcare which are all crucial needs to establishing healthy, thriving communities. In San Bernardino County, TFCF is the only agency that has services directed towards children of incarcerated parents, so that they are able to intervene in the lives of these children who still show promise for a better future than their parents had. TFCF believes strongly in breaking intergenerational cycles. 

To find out more how you can help, visit www.timeforchangefoundation.org, follow us on facebook.com/timeforchangefoundation or join the conversation with us on Twitter (@Timeforchangefd).