In Shreveport, Louisiana, one nonprofit is supporting young women in a big way by building a tiny-home village for those with no place to live after leaving foster care.
As KTAL NBC 6 News explained, Christi Robinson, the executive director and founder of Faith and Fostering, said she felt called to create a safe, loving community for young women after seeing how hard it was for some of them to adjust to everyday life outside foster care.
Robinson has always had a "heart to serve," according to the news outlet, and that calling led her to help women coming from difficult and often dangerous backgrounds, including trafficking and drug addiction. One experience in particular stuck with her.
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Definitely 🙁 After trying to help two young women transition to adult life after foster care and fearing the worst after not hearing from them again, Robinson knew she had to do more to support women in becoming self-sufficient.
"I was just heartbroken because I was afraid we were going to lose them. And sure enough when they aged out we lost them. So we don't know if we lost them to prostitution or drug distribution or even death," Robinson explained. "We don't know what happened to them."
That experience, while heartbreaking, led to the creation of Faith and Fostering, which helps homeless young adults ages 18 to 24 achieve independence within two years. The organization connects them with the right people and resources to help them achieve their life goals and provides a volunteer-led support team to ensure they "not only survive but thrive," as the nonprofit's website says.
Since opening in March 2020, Faith and Fostering has helped numerous young men and women get back on their feet by providing furnished housing and other basic needs, employment training, counseling, and more. Sponsors and partners have donated homes, apartments, and furniture for the young adults.
In 2023, the support continued to pour in, as Faith and Fostering was blessed with another donated home and five acres to build the future tiny-house village, which will include 18 homes. The homes will benefit residents and the planet since they require far fewer resources to build and use less energy than traditional homes.
"They're going to be 500 to 600 square feet per unit and it will house one person," Barbara Lewis, community relations coordinator for Faith and Fostering, told KTAL. "We will have a couple of units that will be up to 800 square feet and have one-bedrooms for a mother that may have a child."
The next step will be clearing the land for the tiny-home community, but that will require the assistance of a larger village. As the next chapter at Faith and Fostering unfolds, it will be exciting to see so many young people getting the help they need to reach their fullest potential.
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"It really takes a community to solve the problem," Robinson said. "Faith and Fostering is just one piece of the puzzle. But we need people. If they have a heart for this we have a place for them.
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