Give a Kid a ZIP Code With Endless Possibilities
Families Flourish was created to give Central Ohio kids a chance to live in our region’s higher-resourced neighborhoods.
The goal of the program is to improve academic performance for children, financial well-being and physical and mental wellness for families.
Our History
Since mid-2018, Families Flourish, formerly Move to PROSPER, has been a pilot project of Ohio State’s City & Regional Planning department at the Knowlton School. The results of our 10-family pilot show us that our model works. Our pilot parents raised their income by 58% on average, putting $17,000 more into each family’s household per year than before they entered the Families Flourish program!
Now Expanding To Serve More!
Now we are on a path to invite the next new families into our unique program in an expansion campaign we call Empower 100. We want YOU to become a part of our growth. The family you help may very well be a family living around the corner.
Families Flourish makes affordable rental housing available in neighborhoods that offer access to opportunities, such as higher-resourced schools, safe neighborhoods, employment, sidewalks that lead to a public park, and other indicators of opportunities.
We provide:
Three years of partial rental support
Comprehensive life coaching
Workshops and programs
Access to safe, quality & healthy housing in an apartment in a higher-resourced community
Assistance introducing children into a new school & families into a new neighborhood
Poverty is very concentrated in certain Greater Columbus neighborhoods, and that hasn’t changed for generations in many communities. Our program catapults families over the invisible walls of segregation right now - not waiting for neighborhoods to improve.
Our Coaching Program
Our coaching is the key to helping FF families define and accomplish their goals and truly establish economic security for their families. Coaching revolves around four key pillars so families with children thrive and prosper:
Housing stability (mobility, moving to a new neighborhood, and tenant responsibilities)
Financial capability and stability
Improved health outcomes (physical and mental health, as our moms generally suffer from toxic stress)
Education/career goals (empowering parents to navigate their child's school for positive outcomes, plus their own coaching for educational and career pathways)
“The programs taught me how to budget. They taught me how to save. They helped me learn healthy habits that literally changed what could have been a very scary outcome for my family. The pandemic would have really set us back if I hadn’t learned these skills from the program which better prepared us for the unexpected.”
Our Results
FF parents say their children are showing growth across multiple dimensions of well-being. The vast majority of participants indicated a continued positive transition into new schools, improved academic outcomes, improved health and self-esteem and optimism for youth.
“In my old school, I thought I’d be a WalMart greeter like my uncle. In my new school, my teachers are telling me I’d make a great engineer or lawyer.”
Parents report positive changes in their children’s physical health since joining FF. In fact, before the program – when most families were in unsafe and unhealthy housing – trips to the ER for asthma attacks numbered over a dozen per year. Now that they’re in safe and stable housing with access to green space and sidewalks, those same kids are in the ER once or NEVER.
Return on Investment
Earnings: Children in high opportunity neighborhoods have $302,000 higher average lifetime earnings,* resulting in $5.4 million higher lifetime earnings for FF children.
Healthcare savings: Five FF children, in their newer, healthier homes, have had 20 fewer emergency room visits per year, resulting in $30,000 annual healthcare savings.
Program: FF delivers a 25% ROI to investors based on the cost of the program compared to the total family income increase of $150,000 annually.
Property savings: FF’s participating landlords estimated savings of $1,000-$2,000 per unit annually in turnover costs.
*Chetty, R., Hendren, N., & Katz, L. F. (2016). The Effects of Exposure to Better Neighborhoods on Children: New Evidence from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment. American Economic Review, 106(4), 855–902