Issues & Alerts
Promoting effective public policies
PEC organizes campaigns to bring people together to strengthen the systems serving families who are experiencing homelessness. Some of the issues we regularly address include:
• McKinney Vento: This act is the single largest source of federal funding to provide services and housing to families and individuals who are experiencing homelessness. PEC works to increase support for expanding the annual appropriations, and on reauthorizing the law governing McKinney Vento programs.
• Children’s Issues: PEC is working to encourage the City of Philadelphia to identify the true scope of the problem and provide commensurate resources for remediation. That means counting children who are experiencing homelessness, comprehensively assessing their needs, and then providing services. The earlier physical, mental, and emotional problems are identified, the more successful the intervention can be. Specifically, PEC is working to ensure that school age children receive the services they are entitled to, to improve housing options for teens, and addressing mental health and developmental problems especially in young children.
Educating the public
PEC organizes community forums on a variety of subjects, including the Pennsylvania state budget, early care and education, domestic violence, homeless provider funding, and the issues surrounding children who are experiencing homelessness. We also regularly publish the following:
- PEC Perspective: an e-newsletter on recent events and action alerts that is distributed twice a month.
- BrainGain@PEC: summaries of research and publications on topics of families and children who are experiencing homelessness. View July's edition.
- Publications: Policy briefs, analysis, testimonies and more
