The Keeping Families Together pilot project utilizes long-term supportive housing as a tool to reduce child abuse and neglect and prevent foster care among homeless or inadequately housed families in Bernalillo, Valencia, and Dona Ana counties. It emphasizes immediate access to long-term supportive housing rather than transitional housing or housing contingent on participation in supportive housing programs. Long-term supportive housing includes provision of a combination of free or low-cost housing and supportive services that includes counseling, substance abuse treatment, physical and mental health care, assistance in accessing public benefits, parenting skills training, and employment assistance for a period of not less than twenty-four (24) months or until a family chooses to leave the provided housing.
New Mexico Appleseed advocated strongly and worked with legislation to help finance Keeping Families Together. The program is being piloted and funded by the state Children, Youth and Families Department and administered by New Mexico non-profit Heading Home. The Keeping Families Together pilot program is only by referral from CYFD (Investigations/In Home Services) to the contractor Heading Home.
Heading Home envisions experiences of homelessness as rare, short-lived and nonrecurring. It is the mission of Heading Home to fulfill the HH vision through a unified voice of advocacy, prevention and service; and to be an innovative convener, collaborator and educator about homelessness in the community.
PO Box 27636