Our Mission
Path Home empowers families with children to get back into housing and stay there.
Our Vision
We envision a community where no family experiences homelessness and where every family receives the support and compassion necessary to thrive.
Our Impact
Behind Every Number Is a Family: Meet Taylor and Trina, who found stability, community, and a future at Path Home—now giving back to others walking a similar path.
Our History
We started in 2007 as Portland Homeless Family Solutions, with four employees overseeing a shelter that was only open during the winter months.
Today, we’re building towards one-stop shop for families experiencing homelessness where they receive the tools, resources, and relationships they need to truly end poverty and thrive.
What is Trauma Informed Care & Design?
Our care model recognizes the layered effects of homelessness and applies trauma-informed care to every aspect of our work; from programs to the design of our buildings. Path Home is proud to have led the first programming of this kind in Oregon and is proud of its tremendous success: 92% percent of Path Home families keep housing long-term.
Our Values
Collaboration
We work in and partner with the community as a whole, including volunteers, local government, and religious congregations, to provide the highest level of service possible. It really does take a village
Human connections
We honor the connections between people and do not discriminate. By acting in a humanitarian way, we serve as agents of change for the larger community.
Accountability
We measure our success by whether our work allows individual lives—and our larger community—to change for the better. We employ rigorous self-assessment and commit to sound financial management to ensure that our progress remains consistent with our mission.
Excellence
We support and encourage visionary governance, exemplary management, excellent service and program delivery, and exceptional staff. We value and uphold the highest ethical and professional standards in all working relations.
Compassion and mutual respect
We create an open environment, where acceptance and dignity are experienced by all. We provide a supportive and nurturing environment to the families we serve and, in doing so, benefit the larger community.
Innovation and engagement
We accomplish our goals by adopting an entrepreneurial approach and taking creative, flexible, inventive and opportunistic actions. We are not afraid to do things differently.
Stewardship
We accomplish our mission by depending on others’ generosity and compassion. We respect donors’ intentions and restrictions on the use of their gifts, and promote responsible stewardship of the resources they entrust to us for the accomplishment of our work
Integrity
We engage in activities, services, and programs that are consistent with our stated mission, compatible with our organizational capacity, respectful of the interests of our varied constituencies, and managed with the highest level of professionalism.
Our Staff & Board
Path Home staff empower homeless families with children to get back into housing and stay there. Our trauma-informed, culturally competent service programs include Homelessness Prevention, Rapid Re-Housing & Housing Retention, Economic Justice, and Family Village Emergency Shelter, serving 1,000 kids and parents every year. Our vision is to live in a community where every family has the support and community they need to thrive and our staff help bring this vision to life every day.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Path Home’s mission is to empower homeless families to get back into housing and stay there. Our services for families include homelessness prevention, trauma-informed shelter, helping families move back into permanent housing, and providing long-term support to help families keep their housing.
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Shelter & Rapid Re-Housing: Families call 2-1-1, our county-wide coordinated entry point to the homeless family system. On that call, families will be asked a vulnerability assessment to determine their level of need. Based on need, families will be placed in queue for shelter or in the Family Priority Housing Pool. Once there is an opening in shelter or rapid re-housing, families are contacted and invited to participate in services.
Homelessness Prevention: Our Prevention Program offers one-time or short-term assistance to help families at risk of losing their housing. Applications can be found on our website and can be submitted anytime. Applications will be considered for the next round of assistance. Path Home offers two rounds of assistance per month; one at the start of a month and one mid month. If Path Home receives more qualified applicants than our Prevention Program can support then families are selected at random from the pool of qualified applicants until we reach capacity. Families can find information and application instructions here. They can also contact the Prevention team directly by emailing prevention@path-home.org.
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Unfortunately, there is more demand for services than we have resources for, so families can wait 3-6 months on the 211 queue before being invited in for services. We prioritize families based on need - those with the most need get served first. It’s still a long wait.
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Families can stay up to 4 months (120 days) in shelter and the average shelter stay is 106 days. Once a family has received services from Path Home, they are always part of the Path Home Village. We form long lasting, trusting relationships with families so they know we are a resource if they ever need us again.
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Kids who lose their housing have a few options:
1) they can stay in the school they have been attending and the school district is required to provide transportation to and from school, wherever the student is staying;
2) if a family enters shelter, they can also choose to enroll them in the shelter’s local school;
3) kids are also welcome to attend Community Transitional School. All school districts have Homeless Liaisons that work with students who don’t have a permanent residence. Path Home has been impressed with the care and attention these Liaisons give to families in shelter.
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Path Home is a founding member of the Multnomah County Homeless Family System of Care, which is a collaboration of nine agencies that work together to help address family homelessness in our community. Our Homeless Family System partner agencies include NAYA Family Center, El Programa Hispano, IRCO, JOIN, Human Solutions, NARA, Latino Network, and 211Info. We also collaborate with Community Warehouse, Raphael House, Urban League, Morrison Child & Family Services, YWCA, Oregon Tradeswomen, Stone Soup, Impact Northwest, the Oregon Symphony, and many more organizations. Path Home is a member of the Oregon Housing Alliance and the Nonprofit Association of Oregon.