Families First

Building Stronger Families

Phoenix Family provides services to more than 3,000 families every day. With 200 local partnerships, we help famiies find lasting solutions to complex problems. Our programs combine short-term assistance to meet immediate critical needs with long-term services that address the root causes of poverty.

Many of the families we serve face significant challenges accessing health care, reliable food supplies, stable housing and transportation. Underlying these challenges are a myriad of intertwined problems, including poverty, dysfunctional families, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal activity, and domestic violence.

Those residents who are employed are often underemployed because of a lack of job skills and education. For these residents, one missed paycheck, a serious illness, or divorce can tip the balance between having a home and being homeless. Combined, these factors often result in financial and housing insecurity. This constant insecurity impacts the whole family unit. Parents facing the challenge of finding or keeping work often struggle to hold their families together. The risk of family disintegration and placement of children into foster care increases and physical and mental trauma can be compounded.

Your support allows Phoenix Family to place a staff person on-site at the 9 multi-family communities to work with people both individually and in group settings to help them assess their strengths, connect with community resources, and meet their goals to attain self-sufficiency.

Meet Tabitha

From what can seem like ashes comes new life

Things were going well for Tabitha. She had recently ended an abusive marriage and was making a new life for herself and her four children. She owned a home and a growing childcare business. Then the economy began to shift and she lost business. Tabitha tried to keep up, but eventually, like so many others, she lost her family’s home and her business.

Today Tabitha lives in one of our communities. She works two part-time jobs, averaging just $9.00 an hour, and is going to college part-time. Things are still tough. She has no health insurance, often has to work after her children have come home from school, and struggles every month to keep up with her family’s expenses, her children, and her jobs.

But, for families like Tabitha’s, Phoenix Family is there to help – providing families with a safety net as they move towards financial stability. Her children attend Phoenix Family’s on-site Youth Development Program in the afternoons – giving her peace of mind in knowing exactly where her children are and that they are in a safe, positive, supervised program. And through Phoenix Family, Tabitha has access to supplemental groceries to make sure her family has food, personalized support services, and a computer lab to help her with her homework and job searches. These services and others combine to help make sure Tabitha and her children stay in their home while they build personal and financial assets and overcome barriers to success.

For Tabitha, things are getting better. She has started to make plans to leave the low-income housing community and find a new home for herself and her children.