The death of Doniesha Arnez’s grandmother, whom she lived with at the time, plunged her into five years of homelessness. She was only 19 then and her ordeal was only complicated when she became pregnant and found that many of the shelters couldn’t accommodate families.
“I didn’t know who to turn to,” Arnez said. “When you’re looking for shelters, it’s so difficult because people are not trying to keep families together.”
In 2023, Arnez called the Montclair-based nonprofit called Family Promise of Essex County — which turns 40 years old this year — who helped get her and her daughter on a path to stable housing.
In 1986, Karen Olson founded the organization in Summit, New Jersey at a time when there were an estimated 20,000 homeless people but only about 1,000 beds — and none of them were reserved for families. It was originally called Interfaith Hospitality Network because Olson’s idea was to use a network of churches and synagogues, often vacant during the day, for housing at night. In the 1970s, there were a number of policy changes to the welfare program that threw many families into turmoil.
“When we started, nobody had ever heard of a homeless family,” said Tia Aery, executive director of Family Promise of Essex County. “It was a shocking new phenomenon in the late 1980s.”
However, that model has evolved over the years. In 2003, the organization changed its name to Family Promise and now has 170 locations in 41 states. Family Promise doesn’t operate a shelter. The organization has case managers who utilize a “scattered site model” working with hotels that allow extended stays and with landlords to find apartments, providing in some cases a security deposit and up to two months rent. But the case managers “walk with their clients,” Aery said, helping them with a job searches and free class. Arnez even had a car donated to her.
“I cried that day because I couldn’t believe all of this was happening,” she said.
Over time, tenants are expected to begin contributing more and more towards the rent until they are self-sufficient. That is where Arnez finds herself today. “I made it through,” she said. “But that was one hell of a ride.”
Aery said that in the past two years she is seeing a spike in homelessness that is fueled by the lack of affordable housing. The average two-bedroom in Essex County is $2,140 according to the New Jersey Department of Housing and Urban Development. Meanwhile the minimum wage will be $16.48 per hour beginning this January.
“The cost of housing has just gotten astronomical and it keeps getting worse — that’s the crisis we’re in now and there just isn’t enough affordable housing,” Aery said. “It is becoming increasingly more prevalent that people slip into poverty and slip into homelessness as a result of that.”
In the last two years, homelessness in Essex County has risen 50 percent, increasing from 1,595 in 2023 to 2,411 in 2025, according to the most recent point-in-time count. Aery reported getting about 500 calls per month from people requesting assistance, double the amount received three years ago. However, she fears what will happen when new eligibility requirements for SNAP and Medicaid go into effect this month.
“We expect that a lot of people are going to lose their health care coverage and those are the kinds of things that just add stress to the system and cause homelessness,” Aery said. “Government funding is shrinking at a time when demand is increasing.”
“It’s not a good time,” Aery said.
For more information about how to attend Family Promise’s gala on Oct. 8, 2026 or donate to their organization, visit their website here.
