Mecklenburg County in State of North Carolina Initiative on Keeping Families Together
Child welfare leaders were intent on learning how HEART identified and is using federal Family Unification Program and Housing Choice rental assistance vouchers to meet the needs of child welfare-involved families through supportive housing. The delegation also heard from the Broward County Housing Authority about the Authority’s approach to partnering with support services, and the barriers and opportunities for setting housing assistance voucher preferences for complex families who are homeless and involved in the child welfare systems. Another topic of interest centered on the difficulties and successes of using the housing first philosophy when working with families.
"Various agencies involved in HUD Continuum of Care, coordinated access and front door services, also met with the groups, which toured a homeless shelter and learned about the coordination between the 211 hotline, outreach workers, and a highly organized system of churches providing emergency shelter.
The peer-to-peer resulted in an increased understanding of the Keeping Families Together model, the specific approaches that HEART Alliance is taking and what they have learned so far, and the expansion of information-sharing networks."