Our Friends Place

Our Transitional Living Center is for young women, ages 18 to 24, who are neither pregnant nor parenting. The young women who live at the TLC come from various backgrounds. Most have experienced poverty and unstable living situations including homelessness. Some have experienced physical and/or emotional abuse. Some have spent a good portion of their young lives in the foster care system. All of them, when they arrive at the TLC, do not have the skills necessary to live independent productive lives.

In a supervised apartment setting, the young women learn and practice the skills needed to live self-reliantly. These include obtaining and maintaining employment and enrolling and attending an appropriate educational or vocational program (one is full-time and the other is part-time).

While the TLC is a supportive and supervised living situation, the program teaches the reality of independent living. One of those realities is rent. The young women are required to pay a portion of their earnings as rent which includes utilities. Should they lose their job, they are not evicted. We act as a safety net, but they are still responsible for rent. We allow them to accrue back rent based upon a 20-hour work week at minimum wage. Once they are employed again, they begin to repay the back rent. From their earnings, they also pay for their other living expenses such as food, clothing, and transportation.

Once the young women are stable in their employment, we add another requirement: to put 10% of their earnings into a secured savings account. We have this requirement for several reasons. First, it instills the savings habit. Second, these funds provide the nest egg required to pay the first and last month’s rent on an independent apartment along with the utility deposits. Third, studies have shown that as little as $250 in savings can keep a person from becoming homeless. Upon departure from our program, most of our young women have an average of $1,000 in savings.

One evening a week, every young woman is required to attend the life skills group meeting. The first part of the meeting focuses on issues that they have living together at the TLC. The second part of the meeting is a skills group. Usually the focus is on life skills such as cooking classes, financial literacy, conflict resolution, goal setting, or healthy relationships. Often times role playing is utilized. Learning how to effectively and properly communicate with a supervisor is essential in maintaining employment.