Families Flourish Brings a Three-Year Family Mobility Program to the Miami Valley
Executive Director Antoinette Hampton is raising money to give five working families housing support, coaching and three years of help moving from survival toward long-term stability.
By RoShawn Winburn, Dayton Weekly News
Antoinette Hampton wants to help working families find better places to live. What she cares about most is what happens after they move.
Hampton is executive director of Families Flourish of the Miami Valley, a new nonprofit bringing an economic mobility model from Central Ohio to families in Montgomery and Greene counties. The program will start with five families and stay with each of them for three years.
Over that time, Hampton wants to see families raise their income, build credit, move ahead in their careers, and wants their children in stronger schools. When the assistance ends, she wants families able to keep going on their own.
Participating families will get rental assistance, including a planned $500 monthly housing subsidy, and will move to what the program calls an "opportunity neighborhood." These are communities with stronger schools and easy access to grocery stores, health services, parks and recreation.
Housing is only one piece. Each family will work with a life coach to set goals and track progress. Participants will also attend workshops on budgeting, money management, insurance, health and wellness, and career development.
Many of the families Hampton hopes to reach already work or are juggling a job and school. A paycheck doesn't always leave room to plan ahead.
"When you're focused on trying to keep food on the table [and] the lights on," Hampton said, other financial priorities can fall down the list. "They're in survival mode."
Families Flourish is built to give families enough stability to start planning past next month's bills.
Built on a Central Ohio Model
Families Flourish grew out of Move to PROSPER, a program developed in Central Ohio with Ohio State University researchers and community partners.
According to program materials, graduates of the original Central Ohio pilot raised their income by an average of 58%, about $17,000, and improved their credit scores by more than 100 points on average. Follow-up data showed that most of the original pilot adults who responded kept growing their income. Ohio State researchers have also studied the program's effects on housing, children's education, physical and mental health, and family well-being.
Those numbers come from the Central Ohio program. The Miami Valley organization doesn't have results of its own yet, and Hampton's work now is finding out whether the model can succeed here.
Families First
Because moving to an opportunity neighborhood can mean leaving a family's current community, Hampton has heard concerns that the program could be "taking people out of Dayton."
Her answer is that strong families come first.
"If we can take those families who want to strive, striving to do better, but just haven't had the right opportunities to do better, if we can place them somewhere where they can do better [and] their kids can do better," Hampton said, the impact can carry into future generations.
She sees the responsibility as shared. Families Flourish helps families get on stronger financial footing. Local communities have to become places where those families want to live, buy homes and raise children.
"We want those families to be strong," Hampton said. "This is how we have to get those families strong so they can represent and pass that down from generation to generation."
Raising the Money First
Hampton won't enroll a single family until the organization knows it can see the commitment through. Families Flourish plans to have about 70% of the funding for the first cohort's full three years committed before it opens applications.
As of Oct. 1, Hampton said the organization still needs about $134,000 to reach that mark. She hopes to close the gap by the end of 2026 and open applications in early 2027.
"We don't want to get somebody hopeful, get them moved in and start paying it and then say, 'Hey, where'd all the money go?'" Hampton said.
Families Flourish is asking individuals and businesses to help. Founders Circle giving starts at $1,000 for individuals and $5,000 for businesses and corporations. Other levels run from $2,500 for a Family Supporter to $35,000 for a Community Champion.
Hampton is asking the Miami Valley to commit to five families for three years. She believes that is long enough for them to build a future they can keep on their own.
Learn more or support Families Flourish of the Miami Valley: familiesflourishmv.org info@familiesflourishmv.org
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