The Family Place

Saint Paul

Education

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The Family Place (TFP) was incorporated by the State of Minnesota as a 501 (c) (3) organization on May 10, 2001 and opened its doors on October 1, 2001. The organization was created after an unmet need was identified by its founder, Margaret Lovejoy, who at the time, was head of Project Home, a night emergency shelter through The St. Paul Council of Churches; the problem was that there was no safe, appropriate place for families with children staying in the emergency overflow night shelter program to go during the day in Ramsey County. Parents with children in tow would ride the transit system or occupy public places such as parks and libraries, until it was time to go back into night shelter. This was unacceptable. Using her retirement fund, Margaret Lovejoy established The Family Place. Today, it remains Ramsey County’s only day center for homeless families.

Because of another more serious problem that is on the rise in many American cities, Margaret Lovejoy will add new programming to her organization. The problem is repeated homelessness and generation homelessness. 70% of TFP participants are children—making them new face of homelessness. In the state of Minnesota, children comprise 52.4% of the homeless population. Just over half (51%) [of the homeless adults polled] had experienced at least three episodes of homelessness. Thirty percent of homeless parents (and 43% of homeless parents with children age 0 through 5 only) had themselves first experienced homelessness as a child. This pattern of transmitting homelessness from one generation to the next, if it continues, may make it much more difficult for Minnesota to end homelessness. (2013 Minnesota Homeless Study: Homeless Children and Their Families - polled on Oct 25, 2012 - Wilder Research).

This Earlier this year, The Board of Directors approved the organizational shift and a revised mission that will focus on “assisting families in shelter to gain more confidence in building future goals that will lead to success of the entire family.” This new focus is an investment in the entire family, with the goal of curtailing both repeated bouts of homelessness and generational homelessness, one family at a time.