April 10, 2026 –NBA- Lauren Wyatt
Even with the NBA regular season winding down, the impact of the game will still be felt across North Texas.
For the Mavs Foundation, the work continues year-round, supporting organizations with grant funding, grassroots initiatives, and creating safe learn and play spaces across the Metroplex. The impact extends far beyond any one basketball season.
Among this season’s $50,000 grant recipients are Family Gateway and Our Friends Place, two nonprofits dedicated to preventing homelessness and creating pathways to long-term stability.
Together, they represent the kind of community partners the Mavs Foundation is committed to supporting — organizations doing the hard work every day to break cycles, strengthen families and build a brighter future for North Texas.
For Family Gateway, that work begins with families facing homelessness.
Serving families with children across Dallas and Collin counties, the organization focuses on a population frequently hidden from plain sight — families sleeping in cars, staying in hotels or moving from place to place in search of stability.
“About 25% of the families who come to us are sleeping in their cars, and we never want children in that situation,” said Ellen Magnis, president and CEO of Family Gateway.
Founded in 1986 by Mayor Pro-Tem Annette G. Strauss, Family Gateway has grown into a leading agency addressing family homelessness in North Texas.
The organization evaluates each family’s situation to determine the best path forward. From there, families may receive rental assistance, help with security deposits, emergency shelter or placement in supportive housing, all tailored to stabilize their situation as quickly as possible.
“A big part of our work is trying to keep families from entering shelters in the first place,” Magnis said.
That approach allows the organization to serve more families while addressing the root causes of housing instability before a crisis escalates.
When shelter is needed, Family Gateway works to ensure families can remain together. This is a key differentiator in a system where many shelters may separate families with teenage boys or multi-generational households, for example.
“We’ve intentionally taken the opposite approach. A family is a family. When shelter space is full, we overflow into hotel rooms so that we don’t ever have to turn a family away,” Magnis said.
The Mavs Foundation grant will directly support Family Gateway’s emergency shelter operations, helping provide safe, stable housing for families with nowhere else to turn.
As the need continues to grow, so does Family Gateway’s reach. Over the past decade, the organization has expanded from serving approximately 400 families annually to more than 2,100, a reflection of both increasing demand and a strategic, prevention-focused model of care.
Founded in 1987, Our Friends Place empowers young women to break generational cycles of abuse, neglect, poverty and homelessness, giving them the tools to move forward on their own.
“Every day at Our Friends Place, we work to eliminate youth homelessness,” said Helena L. Banks, CEO of Our Friends Place.
Through both residential and non-residential programs, the organization provides a combination of immediate support and long-term prevention. Its SOAR to Success program partners with schools and community organizations to equip women with life skills and resources before they experience homelessness, while its Transitional Living Centers offer a structured, supportive environment for those already in need.
At those centers, residents work, attend school, save money and develop a plan for independent living while receiving intensive, hands-on support from staff.
“It takes one trusting adult to make a difference in the life of a young person, and here, our site managers are that trusted adult,” Banks said.
“We work on life skills, transition planning and helping them navigate day-to-day responsibilities and decision-making as adults,” said Janae Easter, a site manager at Our Friends Place.
The young women served by the organization come from a range of circumstances, from aging out of foster care to experiencing homelessness or living in unsafe or unstable environments. What they share is a need for stability, support and opportunity.
One young woman, Easter recalled, came to the organization while in high school, living alone in a motel and working to support herself. After joining the program, she graduated, enrolled in college and left with more than $9,000 in her savings account.
“She really took advantage of the resources we provide, paid close attention to the life skills we focus on, and took it all to heart,” Easter said.
Support from the Mavs Foundation helps make more of those outcomes possible — providing essential resources like food, clothing and household items, while also supporting the individualized plans each young woman follows as she works toward independence.
“We know that safety leads to stability, and stability leads to independence,” Banks said.
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