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Hope for Family Center keeps families together and focuses on children’s education, director says
Summary
Hope for Family Center’s executive director told student journalists that the nonprofit keeps families together during housing instability, that roughly 75–80% of shelter residents are children, and that most families show improved stability after 6–9 months in the program.
Marty, the executive director of Hope for Family Center, said the nonprofit’s central goal is to keep families together when they face housing instability and to provide the stability children need to stay engaged at school. "About 75 to 80% of the population of our shelter are children," Marty said, describing an after‑school routine of dinner, homework help in a reading room, and enrichment activities followed by outdoor play at the center’s expanded facility.
Why it matters: Families living without stable housing face barriers that can interrupt education and employment. Marty told student journalist Sofia Fotero that the center aims to address those barriers by coordinating case management, education supports and basic needs so parents and children remain under one roof rather than being split across services.
Case management staff described how the program works day to day. Stephanie, who leads case management at the center, said families are given a two‑week adjustment period on move‑in and then staff begin work on school enrollment, medical appointments, budgeting and credit work. "We gather their grades, missing assignments, and attendance records," Stephanie said, adding that staff collect those papers daily and track progress in a spreadsheet to calculate changes in performance over time.
Marty also described program outcomes as a mix of time and support: he said families typically stay in the program for about six to nine months and stated that roughly 80% of families who leave the shelter are "doing so much better" and more stable. He and Stephanie framed education and stable housing as central to breaking generational poverty by helping children stay focused on school and pursue higher education or vocational paths.
The center’s recent campus expansion was described as a partnership with the Johns Island Foundation, though details about the expansion’s funding and the precise nature of the partnership were not specified in the interview. Stephanie shared a recent success story of a family who moved from neighboring Saint Lucie County and independently completed school transfer steps with the center’s guidance.
The episode closed with thanks to the Hope for Family Center team and a recognition of local partners working with students and families. The program’s leaders presented claimed performance metrics and procedures to student journalists during the interview; the figures and program outcomes reported here are attributed to the speakers and were not independently verified in the episode.
