Welcome to Hope and a Home
Hope and a Home’s mission is to empower low-income families with children in Washington, D.C. to attain their aspirations. Our mandate is to break the cycle of poverty for qualified families through the programs and services we offer, to help them create stable homes of their own and to make lasting changes in their lives. We envision a Washington, D.C. in which all families are housed, growing stronger and contributing to the life of their neighborhoods. Our unique, multi-generation strategy combines affordable housing, education services, and family support services to ensure success for the whole family.
Hope and a Home began as part of a volunteer-based, grassroots local charity called For Love of Children (“FLOC”) that was organized in 1965 to find nurturing homes for 900 children who were crowded into Junior Village, the city’s orphanage. Many of these children had been removed from their families because their parents lacked adequate housing. It was a critical need that was hard to fulfill.
In 1976, Rev. James Dickerson, founder of Manna, Inc. and New Community Church, resurrected and expanded Hope and a Home as its Program Director. Under his leadership the housing inventory was expanded to include 18 units of housing in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. He organized the renovation of the properties, hiring former addicts and ex-offenders to work as part of the work crews and went to work rehabilitating both boarded up properties and human lives to bring about positive change. This cemented Hope and a Home’s basic mission: transformation of people and communities.
Grace Dickerson joined Hope and a Home as a volunteer in 1976, and became a staff member in 1986. Grace’s focus on finding the best educational environment for each child is the key to the success of Hope and a Home. Based on her example, the organization continues to focus on placing our children in good performing schools-- public, private and charter-- and making sure they have all the tools for attending college or vocational school, so that they can create a successful life of their own. To shore up support for them through their matriculation and beyond, Grace’s work of cultivating a strong support system for every student has become the Grace Dickerson Higher Education for All Program (HEFA), and has been fundamental to Hope and a Home’s success.
History
In 1978, Mary Jo Schumacher joined the organization as the first of a cohort of full time staff members to support the Hope and a Home mission. As a key member of the original team, she would go on to pioneer what would eventually become the program's framework and in doing so, touched the lives of every person that would join the organization (be it staff or families) that she worked with during her 43-year tenure. Mary Jo’s principled approach to helping families-- with a major emphasis on loving accountability-- is foundational to the success of the family unit in the program and in community. The Mary Jo Schumacher Nutrition Security program is named for her and ensures fresh and nutritional food for our families.
In 1982, Mike Young succeeded Rev Jim as Program Director. Mike started as a volunteer at Hope and a Home. He started as our maintenance worker before becoming the program’s director. He led Hope and a Home through its 2005 reorganization into an independent 501(c) 3 charitable organization with a full-time staff of nine at our former headquarters in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC. The Mike Young Education Fund is named for him and is used to ensure that all of our graduates finish higher education programs with as little debt as possible.
In 2010, Lynn C. French joined Hope and a Home as its Executive Director and led the organization through its strategic plan to stabilize it. As a recent retiree from the District Government, Lynn brought both her skill as a seasoned administrator who created and ran the city’s Homestead Housing Preservation Program, and wealth of knowledge about homelessness prevention, having spearheaded the District’s remaking of its shelter system in the early 2000's. To achieve certain capital development projects, Lynn established key partnerships and got a grant from Freddie Mac to rehab the vacant cellar of one property into our corporate headquarters. Working through the stabilization of the program, two of our eight properties, which housed four dwelling units, were rehabilitated and capital improvements were made to the other six properties. Under Lynn’s leadership, the organization is thriving, having added another property to its portfolio, with a greatly expanded donor base, and has garnered the support of foundations and corporate donors.