Charlotte Emergency Housing

Homeless parents are often unable to afford quality childcare for their children. Child care is desperately needed to enable parents to maintain employment and search for housing, medical services, educational programs and other services. There is also a tremendous need for these children to be involved in an educational and emotionally supportive program which assists them in dealing with the many losses and traumas they have encountered in the process of becoming and being homeless.

Rainbow Room is a four-star rated day care center which provides care for up to 12 children from birth through 12 years of age. Hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Only residents of our shelter are able to use this child care located within the shelter for their children. Besides being very convenient for the parents, the Rainbow Room staff is able to specialize in these homeless children who have special needs that few child care centers are equipped to handle. Our program also links them with a child care subsidy program (Child Care Resources) to reduce the cost of child care services for families with low-to-moderate income. This subsidy program helps pay for some, but not all, of the costs for Rainbow Room to operate. Families who do not qualify for the subsidy can receive scholarships for Rainbow Room, meaning the parent(s) pay $25 weekly for all of their qualified children to attend. CEH fundraises for the remainder of operating expenses for the shelter and Rainbow Room.

Besides offering a four-star-rated day care experience, Rainbow Room’s goal is to provide positive and enriching experiences for homeless children that will enable them to grow intellectually, physically, socially and emotionally. The teachers use the Creative Curriculum to design the lessons for the children served by Rainbow Room. Major emphases of the program are character education and behavior management.

Preventing homelessness, as well as many other societal problems, begins with young children. Rainbow Room provides activities that foster trust, build self esteem and encourage development of basic learning skills. This project empowers the homeless parents by allowing them to work and to better their lives, while knowing their children are being taken care of in a high-quality child care center.