August 1, 2008
Dear potential volunteer,

We are a team of young women who have witnessed the results of teen pregnancy and homelessness in our daily lives. Amanda (19) witnessed mothers struggling to survive and provide for their families while volunteering in Bellevue Hospital. Jessica (19) saw teen mothers, who were ostracized at school and subsequently dropped out while working at an inner city public school. Fiorella (23) was a homeless teen mother who struggled to balance finding shelter for her children while pursuing her education to try and make a better life for her children.

We are writing to you to share our mission to create a residential program for homeless teen mothers in Elmhurst, Queens. We recently won an $11,000 seed grant in the NYU and Youth Venture “Be a Changemaker Challenge” to support our idea for this housing program, but we need more help.

The program, Baby’s First Home (BFH), will be a supportive housing unit for 5 mothers (17-21) and their children. We have a 6-unit building in Queens that will provide shelter to 5 families and a live-in social worker. By offering counseling services, educational and vocational training, health education, and other supportive services, we plan to help mothers build independent lives and stable futures for themselves and their children upon completion of our program. We hope to reduce homelessness and poverty for a targeted group of women and children.

In April 2003, an organization called The Institute for Children and Poverty (“ICP”), which researches issues of family homelessness and also provides services for homeless families in New York City, released a report on teenage pregnancy called “Children Having Children: Teen Pregnancy and Homelessness in New York City.” In its report, ICP concluded that nearly half of all homeless families in New York City were headed by women who were teenage mothers. The report surveyed 337 homeless women residing in New York City shelters, finding that 32% of these women were homeless before the age of 18 and 42% of them had been homeless more than once. The report also found that children of homeless teenage mothers were three times more likely to experience homelessness numerous times and 60% more likely to be removed from their parents care and placed into foster care. Some 750,000 teenagers in the United States will become pregnant this year.

BFH recognizes that there is a distressed population of young women with children who are no longer welcome in their family homes, have aged out of foster care, and are left to support themselves and provide for their child(ren) without the tools to do so. As shelter and food are their main priority, they often drop out of school and work low-income jobs just to survive. As a result, they end up struggling to survive for the rest of their lives.

As a youth-led organization we need a lot of help, advice, and expertise to accomplish our mission. We have received incredible support from the NYU community. We have the building, some seed money, and great advisors, but this is not enough. This project requires large scale fundraising and a lot more help. With your help, we can reach out to a greater network of people.



For more information: http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/2066