Our work

As an important first step, NCHCW worked with Congress and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to insert $20 million in new Section 8 vouchers for the Family Unification Program (FUP) into the HUD FY2008 appropriations bill. These vouchers, which will be issued by HUD in October 2008, will be used to keep children out of foster care by providing their families with adequate housing and supportive services. FUP vouchers will also be available for youth aging out of foster care to ease their transition to adulthood. This new funding—the first of its kind for more than seven years—requires that communities nationwide develop the housing-child welfare partnerships necessary to keep families together and safe. NCHCW will facilitate and nurture these partnerships and ensure that communities across the U.S. successfully apply for and administer these vouchers.

NCHCW works at the local, regional and national level to create cross-agency partnerships to enable communities to respond appropriately to families and youth who are caught at the intersection of housing and child welfare. NCHCW aims to create the conditions necessary for these partnerships to thrive on three key levels:

• Policy
  NCHCW educates policy makers and though leaders about the need for millions of dollars in housing subsidies for child welfare families and youth. NCHCW shapes its educational materials by engaging administrators, advocates and those who have been personally touched by the foster care and housing systems. We use this material to increase resources and shape regulatory and policy decisions at HHS, HUD, OMB and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness about how these resources are used;
• System
  NCHCW provides training and technical assistance directly to communities to develop relationships between housing and child welfare agencies. NCHCW create training materials aimed at helping administrators from the housing and child welfare system better understand how their missions intersect. With help from private foundations, NCHCW will create the Loaned Executive Network of seasoned FUP professionals. In each of the five regions of the U.S., NCHCW will select a Loaned Executive who will serve as a resource to help communities in their region build successful housing-child welfare agencies. work through the NCHCW loaned executive network); and
• Practice
  NCHCW brings together frontline workers from the housing system and the child welfare system using the Child Welfare League of America’s Keeping Families Together and Safe cross-training curriculum. This training is designed to broaden each worker’s understanding of the resources and knowledge to be gained by joining together to improve the lives of the families and youth with whom they work.