‘People who live here are struggling’: Children’s Trust investing in Miami families, kids
The Children’s Trust is investing $14 million to support Miami-Dade families managing housing, health and economic adversities that could be preventing children and teens from achieving success.
The organization, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary this fall and partners with community leaders to improve the lives of all children and families throughout Miami-Dade, announced the initiative at a news conference Tuesday at the Opa-locka Community Development Corporation Mary Alice Brown Apartments.
“Miami is a beautiful, metropolitan, international destination (with) great wealth, but the people who live here are struggling,” Children’s Trust President and CEO James Haj said, citing the housing crisis and skyrocketing rent prices across the county. “Families are paying over 60% of their income just to put a roof over their head for themselves and their children.”
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The effort will be funded by the Family and Neighborhood Support Partnerships initiative, last for five years and will be subject to annual reviews.
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The investment will allow families to work with success coaches to help them understand how to tap social services systems. The initiative will also fund transportation, pay for rent or “whatever else a family needs” to ensure children are provided with a safe, secure environment, Haj said.
For Joanyah Saintus, 26, who receives support through the FNSP, that looked like housing assistance and learning how to navigate government services.
“I was really struggling. I needed some outreach and they were there for me,” she told the audience while holding her 3-year-old son, Asterio. She encouraged others needing assistance to ask for it. “They will guide you through everything. It was very helpful for me.”
COVID, housing led to higher investment
Planning for the initiative began in 2019 by the Trust’s board, but the concept wasn’t released to the public until October, when the organization set out to accept applications through an RFP, or Request For Proposals, Haj told the Herald after the announcement.
Higher prices for gas, food and especially housing, coupled with the economic issues resulting from more than two years of the pandemic, led the board to up its investment. The Trust’s last investment was $9 million.
Part of the reason to expand the initiative was a need to support young people living with a disability, Haj said.
“During COVID-19, there was a tremendous need for respite care,” he said. “You hear those stories of parents who just can’t deal, so we’ve (provided) this money for respite care (and) for inclusion supports.”
The majority of the initiative’s funding supports the success coach care coordination referrals, with two additional pots earmarked for family stabilization needs and for families with youth with disabilities. The additional pots of funds, he said, were created “to meet the needs that we have seen during COVID and post-COVID to help support the community.”
Tamika Lewis, chief operating officer for United Community Options of South Florida, formerly United Cerebral Palsy, thanked the Trust’s initiative. Through its partnership, the organization, which serves special-needs children and their families, has been able to “build a cocoon around these families as they grow in a supportive and safe space.”
United Community Options connects families after they’ve learned about a diagnosis to therapies and other resources.
All too often, organizations tasked with providing services to families with a special-needs member are viewed as “deficient or in need,” she said. But through the initiative, “we recognize that families come to the table with their own set of strengths, including resilience and tenacity.”
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Moving forward, Haj hopes the next five years — and the initiative — will encourage community organizations to work together to close the gap on the referral system and ensure services are provided. Doing so, he said, will “move the needle tremendously.”
“If we do children right, we do the community right,” he told the Herald. “If we get the stressors off parents with rent, with food and have the child grow up in a nourishing environment, you change the community.”
This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 6:31 PM.
