About One Family Inc.
An initiative of The Paul and Phyllis Fireman foundation, One Family is a not-for-profit organization devoted to ending family homelessness through a two-pronged, replicable and measurable approach in Massachusetts: The One Family Scholars Program and Systems Change. The long-term solution to ending family homelessness lies in strategies that promote economic independence and create affordable housing.
Scholars Program: A Direct Path Out of Poverty Towards Economic Independence
The One Family Scholars Program provides college scholarships to formerly homeless and low-income mothers. The program’s mission is based on the premise that education, linked with essential tools and support services – flexible funding, leadership and mentoring – helps women clear the barriers that often prevent them from building a better future, pursuing careers that pay a living wage, and building the most reliable and direct route to economic independence.
The program also subscribes to the belief that by fostering unity among the scholars themselves, and linking them to a family and community network of support, the program embraces each Scholar as a member of a larger family, dedicated to her success.
Finally, One Family encourages Scholars who successfully complete their education and secure employment to "give back" to the community through leadership opportunities, acting as Ambassadors of the program, to encourage future participants as they begin the same journey to independence.
Recipients of One Family Scholarships are typically homeless, formerly homeless and low-income working women with children. Many have attempted to better their career opportunities in the past, and have been thwarted by the need to provide health care, day care or other essential services to family members, which overwhelm their finances and ambition. One Family seeks to empower these mothers with the tools they need to provide for their families while completing their education and planning for a secure and safe future.
Scholars may pursue their Associates' or Bachelors' Degree. Selection is based on academic promise, leadership potential, demonstrated work ethic, and financial need. Since its inception, the Scholars program has provided funding to more than 200 mothers, and not one has returned to shelter. Other success indicators include:
• High Academic Retention Rate: Scholars have an 85% year-to-year academic retention rate, much higher than the 55% national average for all public college and university students, 24% for college students from low-income families [1], and 16% for community college students[2].
• Better Grade Point Averages: Scholars overall grade point average is 3.03, compared to the national average of 2.97.
• Acquisition of Family Sustaining Careers: Currently, OFS has an 81% job-placement rate and the average Scholar Graduate salary is $34,220 – an almost 300% growth from pre-program earnings.
• Increased Self Sufficiency: A key indicator of self-sufficiency is a reduced reliance on state and federal benefits: in 2006, the average Scholar was utilizing $13,412 annually in benefits (TAFDC, SSI/SSDDA, Housing Subsidy, Food Stamps and Childcare Vouchers) before entering OFS. At the same time, the average Scholar Graduate was utilizing only $2,771 in benefits ($1,959 in Housing Subsidy annually and $812 in Childcare Vouchers annually.) This represents a $10,641 average annual reduction in benefit usage for each Scholar Graduate.
• Multi-Generational Benefits: Scholar children are more motivated to succeed in school and are in fact improving their own school performance.
Systems Change
One Family’s Systems Change strategy includes working to implement a Housing First strategy to keep families in their homes or move them quickly to permanent housing, creating the stability that families need to enable them to focus on self-sufficiency. This will be achieved by:
• Shifting state government from managing homelessness to ending it via the newly formed Massachusetts Commission to End Homelessness, of which One Family is a member;
• Creating grassroots support for change;
• Fostering the creation and implementation of long-term solutions.
For more information about One Family, Inc. go to their website, www.onefamilyinc.org.
[1] Postsecondary Education Opportunity (http://www.postsecondary.org), Thomas Mortenson, Higher Education Policy Analyst and Senior Scholar for the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, from a 2004 study of students from families earning under $35,000 pursuing degrees.
[2] Boston Globe; The New College Try, April