Matthew Heckles, the Regional Administrator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Region III, and his team met with the HopePHL staff. The goal was to provide the HUD representatives with information to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges related to housing instability, homelessness, and community development: particularly concerning families, youth, and other Philadelphia residents. 

The HopePHL team provided a tour of Gloria's Place in West Philadelphia, which is renowned as Pennsylvania's pioneer structure to encompass emergency, transitional, and permanent housing units within a single location. 

Before concluding the meeting, the HopePHL team and HUD representatives engaged in discussions concerning inventive approaches to addressing housing insecurity. These included strategies like proactive prevention and diversion initiatives, aid for rentals, and funding to uphold affordable housing options. ​

​A family’s homelessness can be prolonged for longer periods of time by a lack of childcare.
 
HopePHL’s Building Early Links for Learning (BELL) project works to help parents and homeless housing provider agencies find high-quality childcare, navigate through applications, and much more. However, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the number of available early learning programs. Numerous efforts at the national, state, and local level are working to get the early learning system back to pre-COVID levels, but long-term systemic problems like low staff wages, inadequate number of subsidies, and a lack of infant/toddler childcare hinder the system’s recovery.
 
The Federal Reserve’s Early Care and Education Work Group has produced a series of reports on the status of childcare as it relates to its mission of sustainable employment. This paper is a summary of its most recent report, which can be found here.  
 
Who should read this paper: HopePHL is summarizing the report for the homeless housing system, other human service systems and policy makers because the availability of childcare affects all industries. In addition, there are numerous advisory councils and coalitions preparing early childhood education (ECE) policy work to offer to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Philadelphia’s future Mayor, and current and future City Council members. Information in this paper serves to add to the body of knowledge about ECE to a non-ECE audience.

HopePHL™ was recently awarded a $250,000 Housing for Everyone grant from the TD Charitable Foundation, the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank®. HopePHL™ is one of 37 non-profit organizations selected from more than 450 applicants to receive a Housing for Everyone grant as part of the TD Charitable Foundation's signature grant initiative that has helped support organizations that are focused on providing affordable housing and affordable housing services since 2005.

​As individuals and families across the country struggle with inflation and an exponential rise in rental costs, affordable housing providers face increased hardship given the growing demand for affordable rental units and emergency rental assistance.
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The grant will support HopePHL’s homelessness prevention work, which assists people at risk of homelessness in Philadelphia to remain in their homes and avoid emergency shelter. Through case management and direct financial assistance grants, the agency’s program provides West Philadelphia families with support to overcome a housing crisis. Since its launch in July 2020, HopePHL's program has successfully delivered these services to 355 families and has provided over $880,000 in emergency rental assistance grants.