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News & Publications

Promoting Sustainability Across Our Lives

4/3/2025

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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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Policy Brief: More than 10,000 Children and Youth in Philadelphia Experienced Homelessness in School Year 2023. Funding for innovative strategies are about to run out.

2/28/2025

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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. 
read full policy brief here
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Children Cannot Wait Campaign 2025 Policy Brief

2/11/2025

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A new report from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) shows the increase in young children experiencing homelessness in Pennsylvania.

Highlights include:
  • Overall, the PDE identified 10,158 children (more than the seating capacity of Palestra Arena in Philadelphia) aged birth to Kindergarten as homeless in 2023, an 11 percent increase from 2022, and an 8 percent increase from 2020.
  • These young children represent 22 percent of all of Pennsylvania’s homeless children and youth.
  • Of the four age categories used by PDE, infants and toddlers are the largest group of these young children, representing 35 percent of the 10,158 young children.
  • The largest percentage increase was in Pre-Kindergarten at 34 percent since 2022 and 49 percent since 2020.

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.
Read Full Brief Here
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Public Statement on Federal Funding Freeze

2/5/2025

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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: 
  • 238 units of housing and services for families with low incomes, families and youth experiencing homelessness, families fleeing domestic violence and individuals with disabilities.  
  • Youth Emergency Service, our respite shelter for youth ages 12-17. 
  • Runaway Homeless Youth support services for youth ages 12-17. 
  • Neighborhood Advisory Committee, a referral system connecting West Philadelphians in 19104, 19131, and 19139 with City services and legal resources to combat housing insecurity.  
  • Baring House Crisis Nursery, a childcare center for families with urgent childcare needs and no childcare subsidy. 
  • Communities in Schools, a School District of Philadelphia program that supports all students at Richard Wright School by removing barriers to attendance, engagement, and achievement. 
  • Truancy Intervention and Prevention Services, a Department of Human Services and School District of Philadelphia program that engages students and families prior to truancy court to eliminate obstacles to attendance for students. 
  • Family Empowerment Services, a Department of Human Services contract used as a preventative measure to keep families from needing DHS involvement.​

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: 
  • 2M+ safe nights of housing for 20,000 parents, children, and youth. 
  • $2M+ in rental and utility assistance to prevent homelessness and housing insecurity. 
  • 3M+ healthy meals for families, youth, and the elderly, and
  • $100M in capital investments in the built environments of Belmont, Mantua, Mill Creek, Saunders Park, and West Powelton.​​

​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].  
Click Here for Letter Template For Supporters
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Back to School Policy Brief

9/30/2024

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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.
Read Full Brief Here
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Time Ran Out – Pennsylvania Losing Millions to Serve Students Experiencing Homelessness

6/14/2024

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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.  ​

Read More
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Help Advocate For Homeless Education

6/6/2024

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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
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Advocating for Funds to Support Homeless Education

5/30/2024

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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!
Read Here
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The Importance of Collecting Data on Infants-Toddlers Experiencing Homelessness

5/28/2024

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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.


Read More
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HopePHL Receives "Housing For Everyone" Grant

5/16/2024

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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. 
Read HopePHL Press Release Here
Read full TD Bank press release here
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  • Home
  • About
    • I Need Services
    • History
    • Leadership
    • Join Our Team
    • News & Publications
    • Annual Report
  • Programs
    • Adult & Family Services >
      • Family Empowerment Service
      • Family Housing
      • Parenting Collaborative
      • Parents as Teachers Home Visiting
      • Rental Assistance
    • Community Based Services & Community Development >
      • Community Outreach
      • Maynes Family Digital Learning Lab
      • Lancaster Avenue
      • Neighborhood Services
      • Rental Assistance
      • Food Relief
      • Arts & Culture
    • Early Childhood Children's Services >
      • Baring House Crisis Nursery
      • Building Early Links for Learning
      • Children's Work Group
      • Everyday Learning Play Spaces
    • School Age Children's Services >
      • Community Schools
      • The Thrive Project
      • Truancy Intervention & Prevention
    • Youth & Young Adult Services >
      • Arise Housing
      • Community Connectors
      • Community Navigator
      • Youth Emergency Service
  • Policy & Advocacy
  • Events
    • BELL Summit
    • Lancaster Avenue Jazz Festival
  • Donate
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  • Contact