About Us

Home Forward Iowa is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit housing and services advocacy organization, advocating on behalf of Iowans experiencing homelessness. Our focus is addressing homelessness in all of Iowa’s 99 counties. We work with many agencies across the state and serve as the technical assistance provider for coordinated entry in most of Iowa. HFI’s primary initiatives include advocacy, capacity building, and creating connections. Homelessness is a very real but very fixable problem in Iowa. Our goal is to help communities identify their needs and find solutions, including accessing public and private resources within the community and beyond.

Home Forward Iowa (HFI) began when three members of the Iowa Council on Homelessness recognized the need for an organization addressing homelessness across the entire state of Iowa. HFI officially became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in December 2015 with the goal of ending homelessness across all 99 counties.

The first few years saw HFI engaged in fact-finding to assess the landscape of services provided across the state in order to chart a course of action.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded HFI a sub-contract designating us as a technical assistance provider in the effort to create a network of regional homelessness service providers, with the ultimate goal of creating a coordinated entry system across the Balance of State.

Then in 2020, HFI became the direct HUD contractor for technical assistance for the entire Balance of State. 

Though HFI started as an all-volunteer entity, it has now grown to include paid staff and an AmeriCorps VISTA member.