Social Work Undergrads Plan ‘Baby’s First Home’ for Homeless Teen Mothers

By Barbara Jester

With the assistance of an NYU Reynolds Program/Youth Venture “Be a Changemaker” grant, three undergraduates at the Silver School of Social Work are establishing “Baby’s First Home,” a shelter to improve the lives of homeless teenage mothers and their children.
    Junior Jessica Mason and sophomore Amanda Raposo met last year at a college-sponsored holiday party, and quickly discovered they had several things in common, especially their mutual volunteer experience with teen mothers.  Mason has worked in a high school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and was disturbed by how many young women were ostracized when they became pregnant and how many just dropped out of school. Raposo volunteered at Bellevue Hospital’s “First Step” program, which helps lower-income young mothers navigate available city resources, and she became upset by the lack of housing resources. The two decided to take action.
    Soon after meeting, Mason and Raposo were introduced to Fiorella Alania, who recently transferred to the Silver School from LaGuardia Community College and expects to graduate in 2010. Alania, now in her early twenties, had been homeless for a period as a teen mother. She had come to this country from Peru at 16 with her mother and brother, leaving behind a childhood where she had been physically abused.  
    “Fiorella’s story of her past life, her pregnancy, her homelessness, is very compelling,” says Mason. “We found it a real ‘call to action.’”
    And, soon, Alania had joined the team.
    Together they decided to establish a small housing unit for teen mothers and their children, and Raposo knew just where she could get the house. Her father, a real estate developer in Queens, had promised he would leave all of his children a building. Raposo decided to ask for it now, and her father agreed. The property, a six-unit building, is still occupied by tenants and will need much renovating, but, when ready, Baby’s First Home will contain five separate units for mother and child, a unit for a house manager, and a basement where they will run a pregnancy support center for teen mothers.
    The center will offer vocational education, high school classes, parenting skills classes, and women’s empowerment workshops. The goal is to address the fact that nearly half of all homeless families are headed by women who were teen mothers, and 53 percent of teen mothers were themselves products of adolescent pregnancies.    
    The housing model they have developed is 60 percent financially sustainable, but they still need several hundred thousand dollars to open the house and are concentrating on networking, fundraising, and program development. A Stern School of Business student and alumnus are helping as well as a Columbia University doctoral student. The  Manhattan law firm of Cadwalader Wickersham and Taft is representing them pro bono.
    In addition to their own hard work, the team plans to develop internships for other social work students, so they can be part of the solution for young mothers on the streets.
    “I was in a couple of shelters with my child,” says Alan¬ia. “[They] try to push you into the workforce, but I had dreams and I realized I could make opportunities for myself.”  
    For more information on this project, visit www.babys firsthome.org.


From left, the Baby’s First Home team of Fiorella Alania, Amanda Raposo, and Jessica Mason.