Help for Families Facing Homelessness 2026: Family Promise

Losing your home with kids is its own kind of emergency. You need a safe place tonight — and you also need your children to keep going to school. Family Promise is a national nonprofit that works only with families with children. It calls itself “the nation’s foremost organization addressing the crisis of family homelessness,” and its locator lists 173 local affiliates.

Note: Family Promise is a nonprofit, not a government program. Its site says it is a “501(c)3 Nonprofit” (EIN 52-1591461). Each local affiliate runs its own programs, so what you get depends on where you live. This guide also covers one federal law that applies everywhere: the McKinney-Vento Act, which protects homeless children’s right to go to school.

Esta guía también está disponible en español.

Step 1: Are You “Homeless”? Two Federal Answers

This matters because different programs use different rules. The school law is wider than HUD’s rule for shelter and housing programs. Find your situation below.

Your situation	School rights (McKinney-Vento, 42 U.S.C. 11434a)	HUD homeless programs (24 CFR 578.3)
Staying with friends or family because you lost your home or can’t afford one (“doubled up”)	Yes — “sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship” Usually no on its own — unless you must leave within 14 days, or you fit a narrow extra category (see below)
In a motel you pay for yourself because there’s nowhere else	Yes — “living in motels, hotels … due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations”	Usually no. HUD counts motels “paid for by charitable organizations or by federal, State, or local government programs”
In a motel paid for by a charity or the government	Yes	Yes
In a shelter or transitional housing	Yes	Yes
In a car, park, bus or train station, or abandoned building	Yes	Yes
About to lose your home	Not named in the school definition	Yes, if you will lose it “within 14 days,” have no other place lined up, and no one to help
Fleeing domestic violence with nowhere else to go	Not named separately	Yes (its own category)

The narrow HUD category for doubled-up families. HUD’s rule has a third category for families with children who are homeless under the school law but don’t fit the others. It is strict: no lease or ownership “during the 60 days” before you apply, “two moves or more” in those 60 days, and a reason to expect the situation to last, such as a disability or two or more barriers to work.

Why this helps you: if your child is homeless under the school law, the school’s homeless liaison can help. Federal law says a trained liaison “may affirm, without further agency action by the Department of Housing and Urban Development,” that your family is eligible for some HUD homeless programs.

Step 2: What a Family Promise Affiliate Can Offer

The Family Promise Programs and Services page lists what affiliates do. Not every affiliate offers every item.

Before you lose your home (prevention):

• “Rental assistance, security deposits”
• “Utility support”
• “Landlord mediation” and “Housing location”
• “Transportation – gas cards, bus passes, and car donations”

If you have just lost your home (keeping you out of a shelter):

• “Temporary hotel/motel stays”
• “Payments for rent in arrears, security deposits”

Shelter: Family Promise says its shelter lets families “stay together.” Affiliates use three setups — rotating spaces in community buildings, one fixed site, or “hotel rooms or temporary apartments.”

After shelter: help with tenancy, money skills, jobs and school, plus community services such as food pantries, clothing closets and diaper banks.

Who it serves: families with children. For adults without children, Family Promise says an affiliate “can refer you to local resources or you can dial the 211 helpline.” See our 211 guide.

Step 3: Is There a Family Promise Near You? Our Count

We downloaded the full Family Promise affiliate list on September 24, 2026 and counted every listing. The page says “Showing 173 Affiliate Locations.” Here is where they are.

Affiliates	States
10 or more	New Jersey (13), Texas (12), Pennsylvania (11), Georgia (10)
6 to 9	Florida (9); California, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin (8 each); South Carolina (7); Michigan, Washington (6 each)
3 to 5	Montana, New York, Oregon (5 each); Indiana, New Hampshire (4 each); Alabama, Idaho, Minnesota, Virginia (3 each)
2	Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming
1	Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico
None	Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Washington, D.C.

Two things to know before you call:

• One affiliate is a name only. The Northwest Arkansas listing (Fayetteville) has no street address, phone number or website. It is Arkansas’s only listing.
• Many listings are named for one county or city. An affiliate named for one county may not serve the next county over. Call and ask.

Step 4: Your Child’s School Rights Checklist

These come from the McKinney-Vento Act, 42 U.S.C. 11432(g). They apply in public schools across the country, whether or not there is a Family Promise near you.

• Stay in the same school. The district must “presume that keeping the child or youth in the school of origin is in the child’s or youth’s best interest,” unless the parent asks for a change. This lasts for the whole time you are homeless — and if you find a permanent home mid-year, through the end of that school year.
• Get a ride there. The district must provide or arrange transportation to the school of origin when the parent asks, even if you are now staying in another district.
• Enroll right away — no papers needed. The school “shall immediately enroll” your child even without school records, shot records, proof of address or “other documentation,” and even if you missed a deadline.
• Stay enrolled during a dispute. If the school says no, your child “shall be immediately enrolled … pending final resolution of the dispute, including all available appeals.” You must get a written explanation and your appeal rights.
• Same services as other students. That includes transportation, special education, English learner programs, gifted programs and “School nutrition programs.” Homeless children qualify for free school meals — see our school lunch guide.
• Privacy. Information about where your child is living is a protected school record. It is not public “directory information.”
• A named liaison. “Every LEA, whether or not it receives a McKinney-Vento subgrant, is required to designate a local liaison,” says the U.S. Department of Education. Your state must post an “annually updated list of the liaisons” on its education agency website.

The liaison’s job also includes linking families to Head Start and preschool, and to health, dental, mental health and housing services. Children experiencing homelessness can qualify for Head Start regardless of income — see our Head Start guide.

New in August 2026: Some Schools Can Pay for a Few Motel Nights

On August 4, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education updated its McKinney-Vento guidance. New question H-5 asks: “Can an LEA use EHCY subgrant funds to pay for short-term, temporary housing (e.g., nights in a hotel/motel)?” The answer is “Yes” — with limits:

• Last resort. Only when shelter beds, hotel vouchers or other help are “not readily available.”
• Case by case, with a written record.
• Needed for school. It must remove “an immediate barrier” to your child’s enrollment, attendance or staying in the same school.
• Short. “Strictly time-limited.” The law does not define “short-term,” so each state decides how long. One example the guidance gives: letting a student “complete a week of school before a housing change.”

The catch: this money comes from McKinney-Vento subgrants, which states award “competitively.” Not every district has one. Ask your liaison two questions: “Does our district have a McKinney-Vento subgrant?” and “What is our state’s limit for short-term housing?”

If There Is No Family Promise Near You

Use this order:

1. Call 211. Family Promise itself points people to 211. Ask for “family shelter” and “homelessness prevention.” See our 211 guide.
2. Call your child’s school district and ask for the McKinney-Vento liaison. You don’t need to wait for a shelter bed to do this.
3. Other national nonprofits that help with rent: the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities.
4. Facing eviction? Free legal aid may buy you time — see our eviction legal help guide.
5. Longer term, get on the waiting list for a Section 8 housing voucher. Lists are long, so apply early.

How We Checked This

What we opened and read ourselves, on September 24, 2026. Family Promise’s Get Help locator (the full list, all 173 entries), its Programs and Services page, home page, Who We Are and Our Story pages; the McKinney-Vento Act at 42 U.S.C. 11431–11432 and 11434a (GovInfo, 2024 edition); HUD’s definition of homeless at 24 CFR 578.3 (eCFR, August 20, 2026 issue); and the U.S. Department of Education’s Non-Regulatory Guidance, updated August 4, 2026, linked from the National Center for Homeless Education.

Something you only see in the source itself.

• The state count is ours. Family Promise’s own pages say it is in “over 200 communities” and has “a presence in almost every state.” Its locator shows 173 listings. When we counted them, we found 38 states — and none in 12 states and D.C. No Family Promise page lists which states have no affiliate.
• Two different numbers on one page. The Family Promise home page banner says “2 MILLION CHILDREN WILL EXPERIENCE HOMELESSNESS THIS YEAR.” A slide on the same page says “2.5. million.” We use neither as a fact.
• The August 2026 motel rule. Question H-5 in the Education Department’s guidance is marked “[Added August 2026].” The NCHE file is named like a “Dear Colleague Letter,” but it contains the full 53-page guidance.
• The school liaison can vouch for you to HUD programs. This is in the statute, 42 U.S.C. 11432(g)(6)(D) — few family guides mention it.

Where the common belief and the source do not match.

• “If we’re staying with my sister, we’re not homeless.” Under the school law, you can be — “sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship.”
• “My kids have to switch to the school near the shelter.” No — the law presumes they stay in their school of origin, with transportation.
• “They can’t enroll without shot records and proof of address.” The law says “immediately enroll” anyway.
• “A motel room we pay for counts as homeless everywhere.” It counts for school rights, but HUD’s shelter category covers motels paid for by a charity or the government.

What we could not check.

• We did not call any affiliate. We can’t say which affiliates have open shelter space, rental help money or waitlists today.
• Affiliate service areas are not listed on the national locator. We did not open each affiliate’s own website.
• State limits for motel stays under question H-5 are set by each state. We did not check any state’s limit.
• hud.gov returned HTTP 403 to us, so HUD rules come from the regulation itself (24 CFR 578.3), not HUD’s web pages. We did not check how each local HUD Continuum of Care uses the narrow category for doubled-up families.
• The Family Promise site is English-only (its pages are set to lang=“en-US”). Ask for an interpreter when you call.

Family Promise is a nonprofit, not a government agency. Its services vary by affiliate. The McKinney-Vento school rights are federal law and apply in public school districts nationwide.

Last updated: September 24, 2026

This is general information, not legal or financial advice.