Using Organizational Collaboration and Community Partnerships to Transition Families from Homelessness to Home Ownership: The HomeBuy5 Program

Abstract

For more than a decade, the HomeBuy5 Program has successfully helped families who were homeless find an apartment, while working with them to develop a plan to move from homelessness to homeownership. This article provides an historical overview of how the program developed and evolved, a detailed discussion of the program's process and structure, the role of organizational collaboration and community partners, and demographic information on the families that have been served. It is argued that this program can be a prototype for other communities as they increase their efforts to eliminate homelessness.

KEYWORDS:

• community partnerships
• homeless families
• homelessness
• housing
• organizational collaboration