The Country Making Orphanages Obsolete

Homelessness has many challenges that require different services to aid those who have no place to live—including daycare and laundry. Seattle has established Mary’s Place Family Center, a public space that collaborates with non-profits to provide a multitude of social services to the homeless. Large corporations have donated buildings to serve as Seattle’s Mary’s Place shelters to diminish costs.

Bogotá’s "care blocks" provide a wide range of services for women who take on unpaid caregiving responsibilities, from job skills training and health appointments to help with laundry and exercise classes, plus child or elder care for the people they look after while they’re using the programs. Through the initiative’s combination of on-site programs, mobile services, and at-home help, more than 3,500 women have completed training courses, caregivers have saved thousands of hours, and other cities across the globe are now looking to replicate the model.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way foster care works. The SAFE Alliance, a merger of Austin Children’s Shelter and SafePlace, had to change the way they do things to ensure the safety of children and teens. “In late February we decided we needed to create a COVID-response team, so the executive team got together and created what we call a COVID coordinator.” Apart from implementing safety protocols, they also found ways to avoid staff burnout, and restructured their teen parent and early childhood programs.

Mobile delivery increases the accessibility of summer meal programs for children who rely on food assistance during the school year. Across the country, multiple initiatives by local governments, schools, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations are working to extend participation in summer meal programs. Many of these programs receive support from the USDA, but additional grants have allowed organizations to extend their range of delivery, as have partnerships with food trucks and transportation services.

Funded by a grant from the Colorado Health Foundation, several nonprofits are working to fill the summer food security gap for children who rely on school meals. Several groups, including Pine River Shares and Friends with Food, have partnered with the Education Literacy Health and Inspiration Community Center to provide free lunches to needy schoolchildren. When the school district ceased operating the meal program, ELHI took over the operations, serving the children of families who already come to the center for other activities.

In El Paso County, Colorado, the economic stress of poverty is recognized as a precursor to many instances of child abuse and neglect. Child safety caseworkers and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) providers collaborate to address some of the underlying issues - like lack of access to child care, housing, and transportation - that increase chances for neglect, a model that has helped families ultimately get off of welfare and into better financial situations.

Los Angeles County has lost half of its foster homes and is projected to sink further into a deficit over the coming years, which is a concerning for the future of foster children. Recently, faith communities have become more involved in this problem including having events at churches to allow potential foster families to learn about fostering and apply quickly.

During the early 1990s, New York City had a sky-high number of kids in foster care. Now, it's safely keeping them with their families, placing them in foster care only when necessary.

The Homeless World Cup is the premier soccer tournament for homeless players. Programs around the world use soccer as a means of building a sense of community, sublimating negative energies, and encouraging personal growth.

New Mexico's new universal child care program includes a new provision that exempts grandparents with legal custody or kinship guardianship from work and school requirements, making them eligible for free child care. In the first three weeks since the program launched, 61 new grandparent-headed households have applied and been approved for free child care assistance.