Project Hope Alliance is well on its way to reaching all unhoused students in Orange County.
The nonprofit in June received a $2.1 million grant from CalOptima, the Orange-based public agency responsible for providing health insurance to California residents.
The โsystems changeโ grant enables Project Hope to scale its model of support for unhoused youth by partnering with OC school districts and the OC Department of Education (OCDE).
Costa Mesaโs Project Hope aims to use the funding to transform how students experiencing homelessness are identified and supported through school staff training.
โThis is the first time CalOptima has ever given a โsystems changeโ grant,โ Project Hope CEO Jennifer Friend told the Business Journal.
Friend last year was honored at the Business Journalโs Innovator of the Year Awards for her work quintupling Project Hopeโs reach and growing the nonprofitโs funding 40% to $2.8 million.
โThere are a lot of organizations that applied for the grant that are dramatically larger than we are,โ Friend said. โBut CalOptima saw our vision to rise up and meet the needs of children experiencing homelessness.โ
Today, there are over 23,000 students experiencing homelessness in OC, according to Project Hope.
The issue of youth homelessness is a personal one for Friend, whose family struggled to find a permanent roof over their heads while she lived in Huntington Beach.
High School
When Friend grew up, her family hopped around motels, sometimes relying on the kindness of close relatives and friends for a place to stay.
Her situation is common for many families in OC. Motels along Costa Mesaโs Harbor Boulevard and Buena Parkโs Beach Boulevard are filled with families who use them as de facto housing, she said.
Friendโs experience has shaped the way Project Hope supports children experiencing homelessness. The nonprofitโs growth has primarily been driven by her method of integrating the nonprofitโs services on school campuses.
โWe donโt have signage,โ Friend told the Business Journal in a prior interview. โOur offices donโt say anything about homelessness, so kids donโt have to feel ashamed or worried that theyโre going to be discovered.โ
The nonprofitโs systems change initiative, enabled by the CalOptima grant, is also guided by the same dignity for unhoused students.
โCurrently, most registration forms by school districts ask โare you currently experiencing homelessnessโ to identifyโ unhoused students, Friend said. โA family faced with just that question may be reticent to answer because theyโre scared of social services being called.
Theyโre not sleeping on the street, but they donโt have a permanent home, or theyโre ashamed.โ
In collaboration with OCDE, Project Hope is changing the formโs question to ask recipients to check off which situation applies to them. The provided options will include โliving in a home, living in a motel, living in a shelter and living with two or three other families.โ
โThat will give us a more accurate number of how many students are experiencing homelessness,โ Friend said.
The form adjustment is one of many steps Project Hope is taking to reach more unhoused children. The nonprofit is also gearing up to train school administrators, nurses, faculty and security to help identify unhoused students and to direct them to resources.
โWe will never stop doing our programmatic work, but our ability to also elevate this to a systems change levelโwhich I believe can be replicated nationallyโwill help a much larger percentage of students experiencing homelessness,โ Friend said.
