About Gramercy Housing Group

Mission Statement

Gramercy Housing Group’s mission is to reduce family homelessness by providing service enriched affordable housing to assist young families in transitioning to their own permanent homes

Background

Founded in 1992, Gramercy Housing Group began as a volunteer organization composed of a group of social workers and child advocates who envisioned a safe, nurturing environment for young families. Today, Gramercy is a professionally staffed, private non-profit corporation providing service-enriched, affordable housing to single parent families.

Gramercy Court, the first adaptive mixed-used development of GHG, opened its doors in August 1996, and consists of sixteen (16) transitional housing apartments, licensed childcare and infant care center, community room for young families and accessibility to an array of social services and commercial space. Gramercy fosters an environment that affirms diversity and encourages young families to value themselves, their neighborhoods and communities.

Since the inception of services in 1996, GHG has directly served over 135 homeless families, providing them with transitional affordable housing and support services including counseling, case management, on site childcare, job training and education referrals, parenting classes and a variety of on-going enrichment opportunities.
 
Families stay a maximum of 24 months (2 years) at Gramercy Court to allow young parents  the time and resources to increase their self-esteem, parenting skills, education, job skills and savings to find long-term permanent housing.

Needs

In Los Angeles County, there is a drastic shortage of housing options for homeless families. A study conducted by Shelter Partnership of family shelters in Los Angeles found that existing short-term shelters can only accommodate less then 25% of the estimated 8,238 homeless families, leaving thousands of parents and children on the streets each night to fend for themselves. Eighty-five (85%) of surveyed shelters said they had to regularly turn away families due to the lack of beds. Furthermore, nearly 40% of the surveyed shelters lacked children services/child care and other essential support services to assist families to transition out of homelessness. This same study found that, when provided the opportunity for transitional housing, a high percentage (62%) of families were able to successfully move into permanent housing.
 
Young parents (ages 18-24) who are homeless and/or have been recently emancipated face even greater challenges in obtaining safe and affordable housing. In the state of California, it is estimated that 65% of the approximately 4,355 emancipated youth each year lack stable housing at the time they leave the foster care system. These families often possess a myriad of other barriers that prevent them from finding stable housing, including issues of physical and sexual abuse, alcohol and drug abuse and lack of educational skills. The children in these families often experience devastating repercussions from being homeless, such as malnutrition, emotional disorders and developmental delays.