Nathan Young has lived in Jackson for 31 years, serving The Care Center of Jackson, which is a local non-profit meant to help women recovering from addiction and other hardships transition to a self-sustaining life.
He remembers the old red building he first moved into and said not a lot of people present for a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday, April 11, would’ve wanted to live in that old red house.
“It wasn’t safe to live in for different reasons,” Young said.
The crowd of a little more than 100 was gathered to celebrate the opening of a new housing facility for the Center in Downtown, called the Genesis Project.
A home built for 12 women and possibly children just opened with plans to build five more homes just like it on the property.
“When we get the other five built, we’ll have room to house 72 women, and I doubt it would take long to fill it up if we got it built quickly,” Young said, looking over the rest of the property that was mostly mud because the moving of dirt has already begun for the second house in the complex.
In the 31 years Young has been serving The Care Center, he estimated that about 1,440 women have come through the facility.
“We bring them in and get them connected to various resources including a job if they don’t already have one when they come in,” Young said. “And we partner with other non-profits around the city because we work in partnership with them.
“Aspell Recovery has a great facility for mothers dealing with addiction, and when the women there graduate from that program, a lot of them come here as an added step toward living in true freedom.”
One part of the plan of living at The Care Center is there is a small rent fee the women are asked to pay each month. This is so they can get accustomed to budgeting before they take their next step into living in their own place.
“If they have a job that doesn’t pay a lot, then we don’t charge them a lot,” Young said. “But if they do or get a better paying job, we do so that when they get out on their own, they’ve seen his something they can do.”
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
