DAY 1 FAMILIES PROGRAM

The Day 1 Families Fund issues annual leadership awards to organizations and civic groups
doing compassionate, needle-moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to
address the immediate needs of young families. The vision statement comes from the
inspiring Mary’s Place in Seattle: no child sleeps outside.

In the Fall of 2022, Day 1 Families Fund awarded Changing Homelessness $2.5M. These
funds are meant to help ensure that families experiencing homelessness are able to get
the support they need to get and stay housed and can support families in Clay, Duval, and
Nassau Counties.

For more information, please contact: day1@changinghomelessness.org

Funding Parameters

The funding is very flexible, but there are a few parameters:

1. Families must be literally homeless or fleeing domestic violence (HUD categories 1,4)

2. Families must have at least one minor child (under 18) in the household

3. Funding cannot be spent on prevention

Defining Success

In May of 2023, agencies across Duval County came together to establish priorities that would be supported by the Day 1 Families grant. The community established two initial goals for the Day 1 Families work:

Ensure an integrated family system: we will know who needs our help, the full scope of our shared resources, and we will be able to quickly connect people to resources.
Increase the average number of homeless families housed each month by 15%. The baseline at the start of the project was 8.7 families housed each month. An increase of 15% would be 10 homeless families (Category 1 or 4) housed each month.

Supporting Documentation

Launch Event Agenda
Launch Event Change Idea Spreadsheet
Launch Event Follow-up Material Overview
Launch Event One-pager
System Mapping Summary
System Mapping Follow-up Deck

First Round of Projects

To achieve these goals, there are four initial projects for testing. To learn more, please expand each section below:

Housing Flex Fund

The purpose of the Housing Flex Fund is to help homeless families resolve barriers to housing by covering costs that are not allowable by other existing funding streams.

Requests for funding will be approved or denied by a team made up of members from multiple agencies serving families in Duval, Clay, and Nassau counties.

Excessive Damages Fund

The purpose of the Excessive Damages Fund is to provide funding to cover costs as an added protection for landlords willing to rent to families experiencing homelessness. The funds can cover excessive damages to the rental unit, beyond normal wear and tear, that exceed the deposit amount, up to $3000. Landlords can request reimbursement for eligible families housed after the first week of February 2024.

Direct Cash Transfer Pilot

The purpose of the Direct Cash Transfer pilot is similar to that of the Housing Flex, but rather than having families request funding from local agencies to address specifically identified gaps, this project will test giving supplemental funding to a small group of families on a monthly basis for six months. The prediction is that it will both expedite their experience of exiting homelessness as well as helping them get stabilized in housing, thus preventing a return to homelessness.

Family Resource Hub

The purpose of the Resource Hub is to easily and quickly connect client-facing staff across agencies to improve the experience of those families who access the system at one agency but would be best served by the resources of another. The prediction is that if direct service providers and case managers have easy access to all locally available resources (as well as points of contact, available hours, and prerequisites required at each), they will be better able to ensure families get what they need with as few barriers as possible.

How do you access the Hub?

The Day 1 Families team connects via Discord.

What is Discord?

Discord is a free platform designed for quick and targeted communication that is easily accessible from a computer or mobile device.

Learn more about the Day 1 Families Discord Server

Registration Information: