 Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22, emphasizes our collective duty to protect the planet and promote sustainability. It aims to raise awareness of environmental issues such as climate change and pollution, encourage action at all levels, and celebrate progress in conservation.
In Philadelphia, both HopePHL and Vault + Vine exemplify this mission through their commitment to sustainability and community empowerment. Omari Baye, Director of Early Childhood Programs at HopePHL, connects these two spaces to foster environmental and social resilience. Vault + Vine, located at 3507 Midvale Avenue in Philadelphia, embodies environmental stewardship and community care. The black woman-owned café and plant nursery, co-owned by Diana Baye (Omari’s wife), offers locally sourced breakfast and lunch options, a consignment space for local artisans, and a licensed plant nursery. Omari volunteers at Vault + Vine, tending to plants and helping to maintain the space. His connection to Vault + Vine extends into his work at HopePHL as he often incorporates plants and natural elements from the café into the Children’s Services Department at HopePHL’s Families First Building. These touches create a calming and supportive environment for him and the Children’s Services team, who often work with children and families at-risk. A key feature of Vault + Vine is the East Falls Community Fridge, a food pantry with the slogan "take what you want and leave what you can." This shared resource, supported by volunteers and initiatives like Fresh Food Connect, provides access to fresh food to community members. Fresh Food Connect links local gardeners with hunger relief organizations to redirect surplus produce, supporting community fridges and food pantries in East Falls and Greater Philadelphia. This initiative promotes sustainability by reducing food waste and enhancing access to healthy food, in line with Earth Day's goals. As Earth Day 2025 approaches, HopePHL and Vault + Vine remind us that building sustainable communities involves nurturing both the planet and its people. We hope to see you at our Earth Day event on April 22nd!
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The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) supports homeless students with its Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ECYEH) office, a federally funded program.
Funds allocated toward ECYEH are used for staffing to train school personnel in 300 public district and charter schools and provide direct services like uniforms, transportation, mentoring, summer programming, school supplies, and more to better support students experiencing homelessness. This paper shares data recently published by the SDP and the Pennsylvania Department of Education using School Year (SY) 2022-23 data — the best publicly available source of data. The report offers insight for decision makers about the prevalence of student homelessness, challenges, and recommendations. The SDP’s American Rescue Plan funds (ARP) (the primary source of funding for this critical work since 2020) have expired and the new capacity and supports for students will disappear on June 30, 2025. No plans have been developed to build on or continue this support; the School District informed advocates that available state funding is not adequate to support homeless students.  A new report from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) shows the increase in young children experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania.
Highlights include:
This report seeks to inform practitioners and policy makers about young children experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania. HopePHL’s series called the “Children Cannot Wait Campaign” aims to increase awareness of children and youth experiencing homelessness. We provide a summary which identifies children in various categories, using recently published data from the PDE of its the Education of Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ECYEH) program. This week a federal court judge extended a temporary restraining order against the Office of Management and Budget’s attempt to freeze funding for federal grants and programs. This restraining order expands the scope of the initial stay issued last week. The order forbids the administration “from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the directives in the original OMB memo.”
While this news came as a welcome relief, we remain gravely concerned about future cuts to federal funding as spending is aligned with the administration’s agenda. The programs at HopePHL most impacted by a funding freeze receive 60% or more funding from Federal sources, and include:
These programs act as a safety net for families, youth, and young children facing homelessness or housing insecurity. At HopePHL, we are proud of our nonpartisan, nondiscriminatory efforts to serve every family and youth experiencing homelessness, and West Philadelphia residents, who engage us, as our contracts allow, and funding will accommodate. HopePHL serves 4,000 children a year and our community development work impacts 20,000 households. HopePHL’s economic impact includes:
There are over 1.8 million non-profits like HopePHL in the United States, running the gamut of offerings from financial education, small business services, literacy support, education, housing, workforce training, and resources for survivors of criminal acts. Many of which will endure financial distress and face closure with reductions in federal funds. Non-profits are sustained by a workforce of 12 million employees (more than manufacturing, construction, or finance industries) that collectively contribute $1 trillion to the United States Economy (5% of the annual GDP). For these reasons, we urge you to send the letter below to elected and appointed officials at all levels of government, and email signed copies to [email protected].  The Back to School Policy Brief was developed by HopePHL in collaboration with Philly Homes for Youth, Eddie's House, Turning Points for Children, and Valley Youth House.
With additional funding and staffing the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) was able to support 10,000 children and youth who experienced homelessness in the School Year (SY) 2022-2023. The SDP's American Rescue Plan funds (ARP) are expiring December 31, 2024, and the new capacity and supports for students will disappear. No plans have been developed to build on or continue this support; the School District informed advocates that the new state funding is not adequate for replacing supports for homeless students; the Parker Administration and City Council are talking about this, but no actions have been taken.  Forty-eight charter schools and the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) will lose $3 million in support for the thousands of students and their families who experience homelessness during the school year. The Commonwealth will lose the capacity built by the American Rescue Plan’s $32 million investment.
Despite public hearings, countless meetings, direct discussions with policymakers, and multiple policy briefs framing the issue, no legislative body answered the call to use local funds to support homeless students. Every legislator on both sides of the aisle says they support homeless students, but only Rep. Ismail Wade Smith-El of Lancaster County and Philadelphia Representative Donna Bullock publicly stepped up to keep the new capacity going. The Commonwealth and its schools will revert to the federal $5 million for the 500+ school districts and charters to support more than 40,000 children and youth who experience homelessness. Yes, we are extremely disappointed.  Forty-eight charter schools and the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) stand to lose nearly $3 million in support for the thousands of students and their families who experience homelessness during the school year. HopePHL's school-based programs, such as Thrive, depend on these critical funds to provide the best support to students.
These funds were provided by the American Rescue Plan (ARP) via Pennsylvania’s ‘Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness’ (ECYEH) program. The ECYEH program is the only federal education program that removes barriers to enrollment, attendance, and reduces truancy caused by homelessness. The schools used this money to expand their capacity to provide staffing, train school personnel, and provide direct services like short-term housing support, uniforms, transportation, motel stays, summer programming, school supplies, and more. WHAT ADVOCATES ARE ASKING FOR: Advocates are asking Mayor Parker and the Philadelphia City Council Assembly for $3 million in General Funds to continue much of the expanded support for students experiencing homelessness. We are meeting with City Council and members of the Parker Administration to convince them of this needed support. ACTION ALERT: Contact the Mayor and City Council and ask them to “Fund homeless education by investing $3 million.” Contact Mayor Parker: Mayor’s correspondence form | Office of the Mayor | City of Philadelphia Contact City Council: Use their websites to send your message: Council Members - Philadelphia City Council (phlcouncil.com) Learn more about our school-based programs here Check out this month's edition of the HopePHL Perspective, our Policy newsletter to learn how you can help support getting more funds to support students facing homelessness, why collecting data on infants-toddlers experiencing homelessness is important, and upcoming events!
The term ‘equity’ has been talked about for many years, but what does it mean for Pennsylvania’s thousands of young children experiencing homelessness?
A public health institute asserts that “equity is a solution for addressing imbalanced social systems. Justice can take equity one step further by fixing the systems in a way that leads to long-term, sustainable, equitable access for generations to come.” The Merrian-Webster website defines equity as ‘refers to fairness or justice in the way people are treated.’ Many of us working in either the homeless housing and early childhood education systems have been asking "are children facing homelessness given equal access to high-quality early learning opportunities?" The answer lies in the data. Many organizations are collecting data on this population but do not report it to a single entity for analysis. In the past year we have been working with our allies to encourage state and local officials to foster inter-system cooperation to improve our understanding of the prevalence and needs of infants and toddlers experiencing homelessness. If we do not know the participation rates of these children in programs like Head Start, home visiting, childcare, and others, we will not be able to answer the question.  HopePHL was recently awarded a $150,000 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 annual grant program that has helped support organizations providing affordable housing and affordable housing services since 2005.
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