LIFE HAVEN SERVES FAMILIES

Life Haven serves 20 families at a time. Over 150 families are sheltered annually, including 250 children. Most families come to the shelter after being evicted by landlords or family members. Evictions result from family break-ups, disasters, living expenses exceeding income, domestic violence and other reasons.

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How Money Is Spent

Ninety (90) percent of income is spent directly on programs to assist homeless families. Seven (7) percent is spent on management and general expenses and three (3) percent is spent on fundraising efforts.

Life Haven works with each family to:

• establish or increase their income
• secure appropriate housing
• support the family through this difficult time

Success Rate

Almost 90 percent of the families entering Life Haven move out into permanent housing in the community. It is our goal to end homelessness, one family at a time.

HISTORY

Life Haven Inc was incorporated in 1983 to provide services to homeless women with children. In 1992 the organization established a 20 unit temporary shelter. In 2004 the agency created a childcare center for children 0 to 6 years of age through a three year grant from SAMSHA. The following year the agency received its childcare license from the State of Connecticut. The third year the childcare center is to begin the National Accreditation process.

Life Haven is funded by the State of Connecticut, City of New Haven, and Federal government. In addition Life Haven applies to private foundations, corporation and individuals for funding.

Life Haven provides twenty units of residential shelter for homeless women and children from throughout the Greater New Haven area.

The families who seek shelter at Life Haven are in a crisis moment in their lives. They come to Life Haven having lost the stable base that comes from having your own home or apartment. Their needs are tremendous. Many are experiencing homelessness for the first time; others have repeatedly lost and re-gained housing, only to lose it again. Of the homeless families Life Haven currently shelters, 40% have been homeless before. The women and children at Life Haven are experiencing a traumatic loss and with that loss are experiencing behavioral and social difficulties. Life Haven provides a respite by offering a whole array of services from job search, behavioral health services, to offering a healthy meal and childcare to their children.. It is the mission of the excellent staff at Life Haven to take proactive steps with the families in order to break the cycle of homelessness.

MISSION

Life Haven Inc., a nonprofit organization is dedicated to temporarily housing homeless pregnant women and women with young children. The Life Haven shelter provides 40 beds (20 units) to women and children for and average of 60 days each. During their stay the shelter is committed to assisting children and their families to develop skills that will enable them to live independently and achieve success. We remain deeply committed to ending homelessness one family at a time.

CHILDCARE

33,000 people in Connecticut experience homelessness in a year and 13,000 are children. Children are the fastest growing homeless population and suffer greater negative consequences. Families with children constitute approximately 40% of the people who become homeless.

• In 2006, Life Haven served 259 clients, or 86 families. 138 of those clients were children 0 to 5 years old.
• Life Haven is one of the leaders in childcare for homeless children in the New Haven region.

Life Haven has implemented a resiliency model in partnership with the Devereux Foundation. The project helps children and families overcome social, emotional and educational obstacles by promoting their resilience and develop individual plans to promote protective factors for more positive behavioral and psychological outcomes in at-risk children.

Homeless children are more likely to experience developmental problems. This makes preschool a critical part of their development to assure their ongoing progress in school. Statistics affirm that children as little as three months of Head Start in a publicly funded daycare exhibited mor age appropriate performance on developmental tasks that children who did not attend Head Start. There is a lack of quality childcare for infants and toddlers due to the cost per child.

VISION

Life Haven's vision is to provide a quality child development program to homeless children that focuses on their education and social development through the practice of the resiliency model developed by the Devereux Foundation.