The Need
Academic success starts at home. Stable housing and positive school experiences play an integral role in how well children excel in the classroom. Unfortunately, almost 1.5 million school-age children fell into homelessness in 2018-2019. Countless more were evicted from their homes because their families faced a sudden loss of income or an emergency expense. Such instability disrupts learning, increases absenteeism, and often leads to student disengagement.
We can’t expect children to succeed in school when they don’t have a safe place to call home. Vulnerable families and children need resources and intervention before they end up on in shelters or on the streets.
The Siemer Institute oversees a network of programs for families with school-aged children at risk of homelessness. These programs provide comprehensive services to stabilize families in their homes while keeping children in their schools.
Our programs are locally designed and locally managed to ensure that they respond to immediate community needs. No single approach to homelessness prevention works everywhere, so our partners have the flexibility to identify the most effective solutions for their communities while working within a nationally managed collective impact model.
The Siemer Institute is more than a funder. We build partnerships with United Ways across the country to identify community-appropriate solutions. We provide multi-year grants to enable our partner communities to build lasting, effective programs.
As the backbone organization, the Siemer Institute conducts research to inform and enhance the work of our partners. We serve as a hub of information, and we create ongoing opportunities for our partners to learn from one another.
We strive for lasting change for our families. We want our families to gain the skills and resources they need to gain permanent stability. We encourage our partners to develop programs that extend beyond crisis interventions to empower families on the long road to self-sufficiency.
