Family Promise of Riverside serves 5,000 local unhoused children while partnering with faith communities to transform unused Sunday school rooms into family shelters.
Community Nonprofits See Growing Need During Back-to-School Season
Family Promise of Riverside serves 5,000 local unhoused children while partnering with faith communities to transform unused Sunday school rooms into family shelters.
While holiday seasons traditionally spotlight charitable giving, back-to-school time creates equally urgent needs for nonprofits serving families, needs that often go unrecognized as most Riverside families focus on supply shopping and enrollment. For thousands of local children, however, the start of the academic year brings the harsh reality of facing school without stable housing.
"The first thing we're working on is getting kids in school if it's school time," said Claire Jefferson-Glipa, who leads Family Promise of Riverside. But for homeless families, school enrollment represents just one of many complex challenges that intensify as summer ends and community attention shifts away from charitable needs.
The scope of need is staggering. Approximately 5,000 unhoused children attend school in Riverside USD and Alvord USD combined, with about 3,000 in Riverside USD alone. Countywide, roughly 17,000 children in grades K-12 have been identified as experiencing homelessness — numbers that represent a hidden crisis in plain sight.
"These little ones aren't the normal story of who we talk about when we're talking about the unhoused population, and yet they are the largest unhoused population," Jefferson-Glipa said.
Family Promise of Riverside addresses this crisis through an innovative model that transforms unused Sunday school classrooms and church office spaces into emergency family shelters. Rather than operating a single large facility, the organization rotates families through participating congregations, utilizing spaces that typically sit empty most of the week.
"Even now as our congregational churches shrink, most of those traditional Sunday school spaces and youth spaces are unused, period," Jefferson-Glipa explained. The model leverages these underutilized rooms — from former children's ministry areas to administrative offices — providing both immediate housing and comprehensive support services.
The organization currently has 90 families on its waiting list, a number that has grown dramatically as demand increases. Jefferson-Glipa said her staff now takes "10 times the amount of calls that we took this time last year."
Unlike the holiday season, when charitable attention peaks, back-to-school time often sees decreased giving even as needs spike. Family Promise offers multiple programs beyond emergency shelter, including a shelter diversion program that works with families staying temporarily with relatives, and a two-year post-housing stability program recognizing that 98% of people who exit homelessness nationally slide back within two years without continued support.
The organization's day center serves as a hub where children can play, do homework and eat while parents work toward stability. Evidence-based services include curated libraries for each child's future home, trauma-informed play spaces, and clothing closets stocked entirely with new items that allow families to maintain dignity through choice.
"There's just nothing more powerful than giving your precious little one something brand new," Jefferson-Glipa said. "There's a different sense of dignity when parents can be like, 'Oh, my gosh, my kid loves purple or blue.' Those things matter."
The families served defy common stereotypes about homelessness. Jefferson-Glipa described working with janitors, grocery store workers, convenience store employees and even staff from the district attorney's office — people who work full time but cannot afford Riverside's average one-bedroom rent of $2,400 per month.
"We have had some amazing folks. I've been blessed to serve community members who you would never in your life guess that they were experiencing homelessness," she said.
Jefferson-Glipa emphasized that solutions exist within Riverside's abundant faith community, where many congregations maintain Sunday school rooms and office spaces that remain vacant most days and nights.
"We could quite literally have zero children sleeping in cars or worse, if every congregation that had space that was not being used or being underutilized, opened it up for us to engage families," she said.
The organization's model demonstrates the power of sustained community investment year-round. Supported 95% by individual donors with an average contribution of $35, Family Promise shows what's possible when residents engage consistently beyond holiday giving cycles.
"If every Riversider gave $35 a month to their heart-connected nonprofit, our nonprofit sector would be bolstered," Jefferson-Glipa said. "Your dollar and your choice matter in real time today."
As back-to-school season approaches with its unique challenges, Jefferson-Glipa's message is clear: Charitable need doesn't pause between holidays, and the community has both the resources and moral imperative to ensure no child starts the school year living in a car.
"None of us think that children should live in cars," she said. "We are one community. We are all humans. And my community, your community is only as strong as our willingness to support our most vulnerable."
More information: Residents can support Family Promise of Riverside through donations, volunteering or helping their congregation become a host site at fpriverside.org.
