DUBLIN, Ohio — An organization helping single moms and their families step into their futures by providing safe and secure housing is expanding its reach.
What You Need To Know
- Move to Prosper is looking for its next 100 families to participate in their Empower 100 Initiative
- So far, the program has helped families boost income by $17,000 per year
- As a result of families moving into safer housing and neighborhoods, and emergency room visits have dropped
- Landlords are saving $1,000-$2,000 per unit because they don’t have to clean and remarket units
- The partnership with landlords is being considered as a model for other areas around the state and country
Move to Prosper is building out cohorts of 16 families to reach the 100 mark. The first group of 2022 will move into their new places by the start of school.
Move to Prosper, with Ohio State’s City and Regional Planning program, launched a pilot with 10 single moms in 2018. The goal was to give $400 in rental assistance, provide life coaching, and access to higher-resourced schools for their kids with the help of community and foundation donors.
In addition, partnerships with landlords across central Ohio gave the first group of moms the ability to transition into two-bedroom apartments they could afford, giving them and their families stability, all while they engaged in monthly programs to help secure better jobs and pay increases.
For kids within those families, the program has helped kids get supportive programming they couldn’t get at their previous schools and enter honors and gifted classes.
For overall health and wellness, Development Director Shiloh Todorov said they’ve seen a drop in emergency room visits.
“There’s research across the country that areas of lower opportunity often have air quality problems,” said Todorov. “If you are living in unsafe housing stock, whether that means you’ve got a mold problem or a leak problem or something else going on, those are exacerbating to your physical health.”
Todorov said a mom in the program said her son had gone to the emergency room for asthma attacks 14 times in the year before she entered the program because of things in a previous house and neighborhood, but in the first year of the program he went once.
“If you just multiply the cost savings to that one family, it’s like a significant public health moment,” Todorov said.
For moms like Tehani Morales, the transition has made a world of difference over the last three-and-a-half years.
With the help of a career coach, rental assistance and other resources, she said she could leave run-down apartments where she would see drug deals happening, and her kids can sleep at night.
“It was definitely a weight off my shoulders knowing that the kids would be in an area that I considered safe,” she said.
Her oldest daughter, Brandy Rosel’s, grades have improved. She’s taking honors classes, which is something she couldn’t do before, making new friends and engaging in new activities.
“I got to join color guard. It is my favorite thing. I love color guard. I’ve made some of my best friends now. I made them in marching band,” she said. “I get to do so many cool things that I would not have had the opportunity to do being at my old school.”
As for her mom, she’s landed a better job making $20,000 more per year, giving her the ability to save money for the first time.
Her advice to new moms joining the program, “build community and be willing to share what you’re going through because everyone in your group will probably have a similar story.”
Morales said change will happen and the only way to move out of the struggle is to grow with those alongside others in the group.
Morale’s group officially finishes its program in July.
Already, the moms are looking for ways to pay it forward, including becoming donors themselves for the groups ahead. Move to Prosper has received 72% of the $600,000 needed to fund the initiative.
