How it works
Seven weeks in a room with women doing the same hard thing.
Housing information is everywhere and almost none of it is usable when you're in the middle of it. What's missing is structure, a group that gets it, and someone who checks back long after the program ends.
Who can apply right now
Women in the Bronx and Harlem who entered the shelter system within the last 30 days.
That's a narrow door, and it's narrow on purpose. The first month in the shelter system is the window where the right help changes the most, and starting there lets us learn exactly what's missing before we grow.
While this cohort runs, we're documenting the gaps we can't cover yet and measuring what it would take to cover them. Expanding who we can serve is the plan, not an afterthought.
We're starting in the Bronx and Harlem, and the plan is to serve all five boroughs of New York City. Where we go next is shaped by where the need shows up.
Every other woman can put herself on the waiting list. When seats open, or when we reach her borough, that list is where we start.
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01
She applies
Through the form on this site, by phone, or by referral from a shelter, school, church, or caseworker. Seats are limited to 50, so we open applications ahead of each cohort.
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02
We map where she actually stands
Before week one, we go through the whole picture with her: income, benefits, debt, credit, lease status, deadlines, and whatever is about to break first. Most women have never seen all of it written on one page.
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03
Seven weeks, together
The program runs in a group, on purpose. Housing applications, budgeting, credit, tenant rights, and homeownership readiness — worked through week by week alongside women who understand the situation without having it explained to them.
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04
She leaves with a plan on paper
Not a certificate. A written plan with her goals, her numbers, her deadlines, and the specific next steps — something she can hand to a landlord, a lender, or a caseworker.
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05
90 days. Six months. One year.
We come back three times to ask how it's holding: housing status, income, credit, savings, what worked and what didn't. It keeps her supported through the fragile first year, and it's how we prove this works instead of just believing it does.
Every seat is sponsored.
A donor or partner covers her place in the cohort — through the seven weeks and the full year of follow-up. She is never asked to pay, and there is no credit check.
She sets the goals.
We bring the structure and the deadlines. She decides where she's going. Nobody gets managed.
We measure what happens.
A year of follow-up on every participant, so our results are something we can show you, not just describe.
