Walnut Avenue Family & Women's Center

Walnut Avenue Family & Women's Center, doing business as Walnut Ave Womens Center Inc., is a Santa Cruz, California–based tax-exempt nonprofit organization that operates as a federal grant recipient, delivering homelessness prevention, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, and supportive services to vulnerable populations including individuals and families experiencing homelessness and domestic violence survivors. The organization operates primarily as a sub-recipient (70% of recent awards) under state and federal grant pass-through vehicles, with a smaller footprint as a prime grant recipient (30% of recent awards) directly from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Walnut Avenue's federal grant portfolio centers on HUD's Continuum of Care Program (CFDA 14.267), under which the organization has received five consecutive annual CoC project grants from HUD's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, most recently a $728,407 award effective November 1, 2025 through October 31, 2026, and a prior-year award of $545,780 (November 1, 2024 through October 31, 2025). These CoC awards support permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, homeless management information systems, rental assistance, case management, and homelessness prevention activities. As a sub-recipient, Walnut Avenue draws funding through California state agencies—the Office of Emergency Services, Department of Social Services, and Department of Education—for domestic violence emergency shelter and support services, child care and development funding under the Child Care and Development Fund and Child Care and Development Block Grant, and child nutrition reimbursement under the Child and Adult Food Care Program. Recent sub-awards include three pass-throughs from California's Office of Emergency Services for domestic violence support (October 2024), two Child Care and Development Fund awards from the California Department of Social Services (October 2024 and October 2013), and two federal sub-awards routed through California's Office of Emergency Services in December 2025 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families (Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services) and the Department of Justice Office for Victims of Crime.

Customer concentration aligns with the organization's service mission: HUD's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development accounts for six awards (100% prime grant work); the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families anchors five awards; the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Victims of Crime accounts for three awards; and the Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service carries two awards. All awards are sub-awards or pass-through grants; Walnut Avenue holds no federal contracts, IDIQs, GWACs, or BPAs. Recent activity shows modest annual volume—one award in 2022, five in 2023, six in 2024, five in 2025—with combined obligated dollars across all twenty awards totaling $3.3 million. One award faces ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months, presenting limited recompete exposure in that window.