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The Center for Great Expectations
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Permanent Supportive Housing.

Stable homes and ongoing support for families after CGE.

The Permanent Supportive Housing room

Permanent Supportive Housing gives families an apartment of their own and keeps a case manager and counselor alongside them. A mother signs a lease. She knows the rent is handled. She keeps working on recovery without a move hanging over her head.

For a young child, that steadiness shows up in small ways. The same bed each night. A kitchen where meals happen. A place to put a backpack. Children learn best when they are not moving, and this program is built to hold that ground.

Staff use a strengths-based approach. They ask what is working and help a parent build on it. Case management and counseling continue so a family can reach for self-sufficiency and the healthy home they want.

An adult with braided hair and glasses holds a smiling baby in a white patterned shirt and blue jeans up in the air against a blue sky.
A toddler in a white long-sleeve shirt leans forward on hands while a seated person in a gray shirt sits beside them indoors.

What to expect

Having a safe place to live doesn’t end when our clients complete CGE.

Many families arrive at CGE without stable housing. A safe home is one of the strongest supports for wellbeing, so Permanent Supportive Housing is part of our continuum of care. Case managers and counselors stay involved through a respectful, strengths-based approach, helping parents continue recovery and work toward self-sufficiency for themselves and their children.

We implemented our permanent supportive housing program over a decade ago.

With support from AvalonBay Communities, we created sixteen units of low-income housing at AvalonSomerset, now named The Grove, for CGE mothers and their children. A 2015 contract with the State of New Jersey let us expand. Today there are 26 apartments for at-risk families in Somerset and Middlesex Counties, with 28 units in the program overall.

Julia Gmahle, MSW, LSW

120 Finderne Avenue, Suite 230 Bridgewater, NJ 08807

Hear from our clients.

In the Permanent Supportive Housing program, clients describe having a healthy place to go with their children instead of a shelter. One woman re-signed her lease after the first year and said she had never lived anywhere that long. Parents say the support means they do not feel alone.

What this looks like in practice

In practice, a family in Permanent Supportive Housing lives in its own apartment with a lease in the parent’s name. A case manager visits on a regular schedule, and a counselor continues the work begun in treatment. Parents set goals for school, work, or recovery, and staff help remove the practical barriers, from paperwork to child care questions.

For a young child, a stable home changes the daily rhythm. There is a fixed address for a daycare or school form. Bedtime stays the same. A parent who is not scrambling for shelter has more room to read, play, and respond. Over time, that steadiness shows up in sleep, language, and a child’s growing confidence that tomorrow looks like today.

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