More than a home... family.
Gap Years
The time our Bigs stay with us in the tiny homes are called ‘Gap Years’ to normalize their need to take a couple of years (or more) ‘off’ to live at home and focus on personal growth and gaining the life and job skills they need to be successful adults.
Stays at the farm will be anywhere from 1-3 yrs as youth work through an independent development plan catered to their specific goals designed to encourage our Bigs to cast vision for their lives.
The Big Goals Steward, along with other stewards and trained professionals, will support and guide that vision by establishing goals with monthly benchmarks.
Support will look like anything from conversations around our dinner table to weekly life-skills workshops and on-the-job training helping run the Family Business.
From Program to Family
My Family’s Farm is the gap between transitional homes for teens and full indpependent living.
Standard transitional housing is more programmatic, with more ‘hands on’ guidance and a clear separation between ‘staff’ and ‘resident.’ These homes fill the need for short-term housing but not for long-term family...and a sense of ‘home.’
Teens leave these programs and find themselves in their own apartment...alone and isolated. They lack community and a sense of belonging and therefore look for it in all the wrong places.
My Family’s Farm seeks to change that. We want to stand in the gap and provide our teens the autonomy of their own place surrounded by a community that becomes ‘family.’ Not just for the time they are with us here on the farm, but forever. Even though they might not live here anymore, we want them to leave knowing...this is always home...we are family.
Tiny Homes
We’re building tiny homes all surrounding the Steward homes to welcome these youth (aka Bigs) into our family.
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Each Big will have their own home, fully furnished by our partner organizations, but they will be responsible for a ‘practice’ rent. The rent will gradually increase every month to prepare them for life after the farm as they establish good habits of budgeting. A portion of these rents will be held in a savings account for them to receive when they move out and can be used for first and last months rents, savings, or ideally a down payment on a home. This is an important element of independent living not only to provide ownership and accountability but also to build their rental/credit history for future housing.
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In addition to rent, the Bigs will sign a lease to establish rental history for when they leave the farm. The lease will include all of the ‘requirements’ regarding curfews, cleanliness, visitors, etc.
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