Colette's Children's Home, Inc.

CCH is a California Public Benefit Corporation founded in 1998 to address the needs of homeless women with children and homeless single women in Orange County. Our core housing programs include our Emergency Shelter Program which provides shelter and services for up to 90 days, our Transitional Housing Program which provides shelter and supportive services for an average 5 months, our Permanent Housing Placement Program which provides financial assistance and placement services to program graduates, and our Permanent Affordable Housing Program which provides affordable rental units to income qualified tenants. Our core supportive services include low cost or no cost housing and utilities, intensive case management, life skills classes which address relapse prevention, parenting skills, and job skills, assistance with budgeting and savings, and essential physical needs such as assistance with food, transportation, clothing, household items, personal and infant/children items. CCH does not base program eligibility and entry on considerations of income, employment, transportation, education, cultural beliefs, criminal record, parole status, or similar factors. The primary requirements are homelessness and testing negative from drugs and alcohol at the time of interview. To remain in our program for its full duration, our adult clients must maintain sobriety, follow their individual service plans, and become gainfully employed.    Our target population is homeless single women and homeless mothers with children. Our clients are those considered the hardest to serve and include criminal offenders, with a history of incarceration, who are on probation or parole, and are addicts, alcoholics, victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, attending drug court or family court, are unemployed, with low or no income, no transportation, and no support system. They have limited or no formal higher education with limited or no viable employment skills. They are homeless single female head of households who benefit from stable housing in a structured environment providing intensive intervention, direction, guidance, motivation, and accountability. Having provided safe shelter and supportive services to the homeless in our community for 25 years, we know that a shelter is never a replacement for a home; however, our homeless housing intervention programs provide needed support to those who have the highest housing stability barriers while seeking permanent housing solutions. Our commitment to our clients and to our community is to provide short term shelter and stabilization services that seeks to obtain long term housing in the most cost effective and efficient manner, being ever aware of the need to be good stewards of public funding. Our goal is for the women we house and serve to become self-sufficient, by obtaining full time gainful employment and transition from homelessness to stable and independent housing.