FICs provide a vehicle for the integrated delivery of a wide range of supportive services, enhancing the prospects for community development in a number of ways, including child care, employment training and counseling, computer skills training, literacy training, and high school graduate equivalency certification. The local Head Start program works in partnership with a transitional housing facility for forty-four formerly homeless single mothers and their children. In addition to education classes, employment training, case management, health care, and counseling services. Inn Circle helps residents develop peer support skills, participate in decision making and service activities, and engage with local neighborhood institutions and associations. Other monies come from state emergency shelter funds, Head Start, the Iowa Department of Public Health, WIC, and the United Way.
Residents contribute one-third of their gross income for rent.
Classrooms are open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. to provide extended child care for working parents. There are toddler and infant rooms to care for 18 younger children, and after school care is available for children in kindergarten to sixth grade. Head Start staff conduct three home visits a year that focus on the child's education and the family's needs as a whole. Teachers have worked to adjust their expectations and routines to accommodate the special social and emotional needs of children from homeless families. Expanding this network, a joint effort administered by HHS through the interagency agreement, provides opportunities for early childhood education and after-school enrichment programs in or near public and Indian housing.