One of the hottest topics of discussion among houseparents is their salaries. After running this website for almost 5 years I have come to a conclusion about houseparent salaries: There is no average salary. Salaries vary so much depending on the type of facility, where it’s located, who runs it, the type of kids, and what program they use that you really can’t come up with an average salary. You simply have to find a facility that has one you can live with and meets your needs.

One thing that doesn’t help at all is when you sit around and complain about how much you are not payed. Every position I ever accepted, I knew what the salary was when I accepted it, so I really had nothing to complain about, even though I did. You would not believe how many times I have heard, and said, “the pay sucks – I don’t even make minimum wage.”

For many of us, if we were to sit down and figure the total hours that we work and what we would get paid for overtime, we wouldn’t make minimum wage. However the salary of a houseparent is much more complex than that. For example, how many jobs will pay you for the following activities:

How many places will pay you for:

You also have to figure in all the extras that you get as a houseparent. I realize that every facility is different but at the facility I work at we receive things that you would never get with a “Normal” job.

I would like to end with this. If you are truly being under paid do something about like finding a place that will provide for your finacial needs. However, make sure you are comparing apples to apples. If you don’t figure in all the extras, or the things you would have to do anyway (like shower) but you otherwise wouldn’t be getting paid for your comparing apples and oranges. It took me a long time to learn that.