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By Dan Nonte, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-4314
My Sisters' House will provide a safe, supportive home for five single mothers and their children.
Posted 10-27-08
GREENSBORO — A groundbreaking ceremony for My Sisters’ House, a home for single mothers designed by interior architecture students, will be held at noon Tuesday, Oct. 28.
Speakers at the groundbreaking will include Chuck Hodierne, executive director of Youth Focus; Tommy Lambeth, head of the Department of Interior Architecture; and Dr. Laura Sims, dean of the School of Human Environmental Sciences. A reception will follow the ceremony.
Led by assistant professor Robert Michel Charest, the students in the course Urban Studio 02 designed My Sisters’ House, a structure that will provide a home for five teenage mothers and their children. The course builds on the success of Urban Studio 01, a course Charest led two years ago, in which students designed and built a home for an elderly couple near the UNCG campus.
Like its predecessor, Urban Studio 02 combines learning with community service and applies innovative design and construction techniques to a cost-effective project. And like the earlier project, it makes the most of partnerships on campus and beyond.
My Sisters’ House has won more than $500,000 in grants with the vast majority of that sum coming from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. Greensboro’s Department of Housing and Community Development is providing the land. Students studying carpentry at Guilford Technical Community College will help build the structure.
A cutting edge program to support young moms and their children is being developed by a non-profit agency and UNCG’s departments of Social Work, Human Development and Family Studies, Nutrition, and Communication Sciences and Disorders, as well as the university’s Child and Family Research Network.
As many as 12 people will be able to live in the home’s five suites, each equipped with a full bathroom. Three of the suites will be for first-time mothers, while two will be for women with two children. The suites will afford privacy to promote bonding between mothers and their children, while shared areas for cooking, eating and socializing will promote the development of a supportive network among the home’s residents.
Once the 4,500-square-foot home is completed in fall 2009 it will be managed by Youth Focus, a non-profit organization that supports children, adolescents and young adults. A United Way agency, Youth Focus offers counseling, family therapy, therapeutic foster care and a substance abuse program, among other services.