People's Emergency Center (PEC) helps homeless families develop skills and resources to stabilize their lives and live independently. Grounded in over 30 years of experience, our comprehensive approach to resolving family homelessness is recognized nationally as a best practice model. Informed by our face-to-face work with families, we advocate for sound public policies to ensure that all families have access to the services they need to achieve long-term independence. Families who turn to PEC for help bring a combination of problems that overwhelm their fragile stability. Headed by single mothers in their early twenties with several young children, most of our families have never lived on their own. Our mothers read at a sixth grade level and have little or no work experience. A staggering number (nearly 60%) of mothers survived childhood sexual abuse and have struggled to cope without treatment most of their lives. A third of them are fleeing a violent partner. Many have turned to substance abuse to numb their pain. Their children suffer from hunger and sickness, fall behind in school, and grapple with emotional problems. Many families are trapped in a devastating cycle where they become homeless again and again.