Under the leadership of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Sound Families Initiative launched in 2001 with the ambitious goal of tripling the amount of service-enriched transitional housing for homeless families in Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties in Washington state’s Puget Sound region.

Through its partnership with seven area housing authorities and many local service providers, Sound Families succeeded in funding 1,445 new units of transitional housing that have served more than 2,700 children in nearly 1,500 families. Sound Families made its final round of grants in September 2007.

Evaluation of the program is now complete, and outcomes are encouraging. Full-time employment tripled from start to finish among Sound Families graduates and more than two-thirds of families that completed the program moved into permanent housing. Unfortunately, a full 25 percent of families were evicted or asked to leave the program early. The Gates Foundation and its partners continue to learn from these and the complete set of Sound Families findings.

Although the initiative has now come to a close, positive outcomes from Sound Families continue to live on in the Washington Families Fund (WFF). Inspired by early outcomes from Sound Families, the Washington State Legislature created this unique partnership in 2004 to combine public and private dollars for long-term funding for the types of services offered through Sound Families for families across the state.

To date, WFF has distributed $9.3 million to 28 partnerships statewide and nearly 400 units of service-enriched housing have been created. These projects will serve some 5,000 families over the lifetime of WFF’s 10-year grants.

Looking ahead, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will work with partners in the public and private sector to establish new models for addressing family homelessness through expanded work with the Washington Families Fund, and pilot projects in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties are underway. WFF is led by Building Changes, a non-profit organization focused on ending homelessness by addressing the economic and social conditions that effect people’s housing, health and job opportunities.

With its partners, the Gates Foundation hopes to move from treating family homelessness to actually ending it once and for all. To learn more about the newest investments in the Washington Families Fund, please visit Building Changes.