Travelers Aid Family Services has been helping those without a home and away from home since 1920. They focus on both temporary shelter and lasting approaches to keeping families in their homes, one family at a time.
Travelers Aid Family Services has a long and proud history of helping individuals and families in need. The agency arose from 19th-century social movements that formed to help immigrant single women and families find housing and jobs. Since that time, Travelers Aid Family Services has been there for those without a home and away from home.
Feeling the need to address the growing problem of family homelessness in Massachusetts, Travelers Aid Family Services has shifted its main focus to assist this vulnerable group. Over time, the agency has developed a Continuum of Care which works within different service areas towards an immediate goal of helping families achieve a better quality, independent life, while working toward the ultimate goal of ending family homelessness. The Continuum helps at-risk families remain in their current housing, provides emergency shelter to families 24/7, provides transitional shelter to homeless families while they work to regain their self-sufficiency, places homeless families directly into permanent housing, and arranges emergency transportation for those in need. The staff works with and for low-income families to address their immediate and longer term housing and social support needs through direct services, preventative approaches, and advocacy. With the creation of the TAFS Homes program, Travelers Aid Family Services is now placing low-income, formerly homeless families directly into agency-owned and -managed affordable housing. Thanks to its increased prevention efforts, as well as development of affordable housing, more families are able to remain in permanent housing and out of emergency shelter. Serving more than 6,800 men, women and children in 2007, Travelers Aid Family Services has now become one of the largest service providers to homeless families in Massachusetts.
It is the overarching goal of Travelers Aid Family Services to end family homelessness. Strategies are focused on increasing prevention efforts to stop families from becoming homeless, focusing on more lasting approaches to family housing retention, ensuring that 100% of children in homeless programs are enrolled in school and receiving healthcare, and creating more affordable housing for low-income families in and around Boston.
Ms. Sandy Wixted, Director of Social Services
727 Atlantic Ave
Boston, MA 02111
http://www.tafsboston.org
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