Family Campus
The Family Campus is home to our Family Preservation Center. Bright, spacious and beautifully designed, it tells our clients: Your better life starts right here and right now. Then it delivers on that promise with on-site training, counseling and management, supported by child care and good food. The serious work is complemented by family fun and wholesome good times for the kids.
The 42,000-square-foot Family Preservation Center on our Family Campus accommodates 38 families, giving them on-site access to childcare, job training and other services designed to break the cycle of homelessness. It is a unique and innovative model that is ripe for nationwide implementation. Extraordinary possibilities are now a reality for families experiencing poverty in Central New Jersey.
“Wow!” is the usual reaction upon walking in the front door. Parents and children enter a light-filled foyer enlivened with a wonderful stacked-stone fountain, and the volunteer at the front desk smiles a warm welcome, and a struggling family gets a vision of a new way of life. And the tools are all there to help them achieve it.
The Center is first-class without being luxurious. It is clean, bright, well-maintained and spacious. It is functional without being institutional, a place where parents and children stand taller. Every feature and every interaction with staff and volunteers persuade them to join us in our belief in their importance and potential.
It contains 38 dorm suites, with cozy places for families to sit and visit, a pleasant dining hall, and lots of activities for the children and parents, too. It is an environment of light and art and music and books. The Center opened in September of 2015, offering much more than temporary housing. It is a leading-edge, one-stop social-service campus that emphasizes practical training while restoring the spirit. With the tools and resources available all in one spot, HomeFront has removed the obstacles that could otherwise block our families’ path to success.
Front View of Family Preservation Center
The Family Preservation Center has 38 residential rooms, a childcare center, expanded ArtSpace, a library, music room and a teaching kitchen. Our job training program now has increased resources allowing us to expand computer training, job readiness and placement programs.
NRG Installs Solar Panels
Thanks to a small army of NRG volunteers and the corporation’s charitable giving program, NRG Global Giving, HomeFront has a clean and renewable source of energy for its new Family Campus.
Literacy Rich Environment
A large library with floor-to-ceiling windows offers books for all ages and comfortable reading nooks where parents and kids relax with books. In HomeFront’s large classrooms parents become more literate and employable as they earn their high school equivalency diplomas.
Life Skills Academy
HomeFront offers a wide array of life-skills classes, on topics such as parenting and budgeting, and our new state-of-the-art teaching kitchen provides hands-on instruction in cooking and nutrition.
Comfortable, Clean Residential Suites
The Center features 38 dorm suites for families. Children are safe, secure and warm.
Job Training
Our WorkFirst and Hire Expectations teams offer computer-training, employment-preparedness, training in customer service and the hospitality industry, followed-up by job-placement programs.
Career Development
A job is essential to self-sufficiency. HomeFront works with each client to help assess and build work force skills, create resumes and assistsin the job search and placement.
School Days are Great Days
Parents see children off to school and then begin their busy days as they seek to move forward with their lives.
Cozy Spaces to Study, Relax or Chat
Spaces such as this are conducive to friendly chats or reading a book––not unlike a family room or den in a home of their own.