The Front Door Project is a pilot project that partners Helping Hand House with Tacoma Housing Authority, Tacoma and Sumner Public schools, Bates Technical College and Washington Women’s Education and Employment (WWEE). It provides long term permanent housing rental subsidies and supportive case management services to 30 families in Tacoma and Sumner who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness.

Families are housed, and remain housed in scattered site, single family housing located in the target school areas of Jennie Reed Elementary in Tacoma and Daffodil Elementary in Sumner. Program participants are identified and recruited by these two schools.

Helping Hand House provides wrap around case management, utilizing the Motivational Interviewing model, to assist families in developing the tools they need to be self supporting at program exit. One of the primary areas of focus is improving participant households’ financial resources, through access to education, training and employment support that result in living wage employment and financial independence. Another significant area of focus is having the children in the program consistently attending school, along with improved academic and behavioral performance. With a focus on education for the whole family even the very young are impacted when they are introduced to pre-school and other early learning opportunities.

In this program the ultimate goal is that the families’ income is increased over time and at graduation they are paying their full rent and it is no more than 30% of their income. Education and sound employment are essential in making this happen.