“A program like this could have helped us stay in our apartment. The minute we couldn’t afford to pay our rent because my husband had emergency surgery and I just had our baby, I called everywhere I could think of for help, but no one was able to help us stay in our home.”
Allie - mother, fiancé, former guest of People Serving People, Downtown, 2025
Family Homeless Prevention Program
Keeping families housed
The most effective solution to family homelessness is to support families in staying in their homes. Through advocacy, case management, and financial assistance, People Serving People supports families who are experiencing housing instability to prevent them from experiencing or re-experiencing homelessness.
Our approach to prevention
Through a person-centered approach that provides one-on-one advocacy, flexible financial assistance, and case management to increase housing stability, we help families with the support they need to prevent them from needing shelter.
Advocacy and support services
We work with families to set goals that they create, which best support them in keeping and stabilizing their housing. Our advocacy and support services may include:
- Creating a goal plan and progress reports on goals
- Case management meetings
- Connection to community resources
- Help with systems navigation and connection
- Employment services (resume and cover letter writing, job searching, interview clothing, uniform assistance, etc.)
- Childcare assistance/scholarship navigation and connection
- Landlord mediation
- Budgeting assistance, financial literacy classes
- Collaborating with other workers in a family’s life to streamline communication
Flexible financial assistance
Our shelter guests tell us time and again that it took just one crisis, one emergency, or one event that they could not afford to cover or respond to that started their journey into housing instability. We aim to interrupt that pathway by providing flexible financial assistance, which often includes support such as:
- Childcare support so that an employed parent can keep working
- Car repair so that an employed parent can meet the timeliness of dropping their kids off at school or daycare and get to work on time (something that public transportation often does not allow for);
- Rental assistance, so that one missed rent payment doesn’t snowball into an amount that a family cannot repay.
Turning emergencies into opportunities for stability
Preventing a family from losing their housing or being evicted not only reduces the stress and anxiety that accompany such events, but it also makes good economic sense for everyone. Evictions follow families, increasing the time they have to spend in a shelter because finding housing after eviction is both more expensive and more difficult.
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58 families
Number of families supported by the prevention program in 2024.
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$403,000 distributed
Financial assistance provided to families in 2024 to prevent homelessness (supported through People Serving People and FHPAP funding).
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87% stabilized
Percent of families stabily housed 12 months post program participation in 2024.
About the program
People Serving People’s Family Homeless Prevention Program is a voluntary, 3-month program that requires active participation. However, the exact length of the program is flexible, based on a family’s situation and needs. We check in with our families once they complete the program and again at the six-month and one-year marks.
Eligibility
To be eligible for services through our Homelessness Prevention Program, you must:
- Be a resident of Hennepin County;
- Have a child under the age of 18 in your care, or you must be currently pregnant.
- Be a former shelter guest at either People Serving People’s Downtown Shelter or St. Anne’s Place Shelter, or have or have had a child enrolled at the People Serving People’s Early Learning Center.
Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis and is not guaranteed due to limited funding. People Serving People may enroll other families that do not have a direct connection to People Serving People programs, depending on enrollment capacity and available funding.
Do you need assistance?
To reach our Homelessness Prevention Program intake line, please call 612-709-6905.
Help prevent family homelessness
There are many ways to support our work to prevent families from experiencing or re-experiencing homelessness. Explore how you can help your neighbors.
