Tag Archives: Rebecca Heath

News

Vanessa Solivan Empowers Trenton Families Through New Beginnings Housing Program

By Rebecca Heath

When Trenton native Vanessa Solivan, a mother of three who had long battled housing insecurity, became overwhelmed with rent costs amid the pandemic, the home health aid began to look for avenues to become a homeowner. But as she reached out to numerous organizations, she quickly grew frustrated over the lack of opportunities for low-income individuals and families. 

“Why aren’t we giving people an opportunity? We’re working just as hard. It’s not our fault that these jobs are barely paying a living wage,” Solivan said in an interview with The Streetlight. “Housing should be a right. Why here in the richest, wealthiest country in the world are working mothers with children finding it difficult to follow their dreams?”

Determined to make a difference in her community, Solivan began working with the City of Trenton to spearhead the New Beginnings Housing Program, an initiative that seeks to provide City residents with abandoned houses, and the financial tools to redevelop them, according to The Trentonian. Approximately 1,000 properties around Trenton are abandoned, and while the program is starting small, Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora told PBS that expansion is on the horizon to address this crisis. 

“I’m very excited about [the initiative], and I see it having a lot of potential and just kind of inspiring people,” Solivan said. 

Through the pilot program, Solivan gained ownership of 651 North Clinton Ave., her childhood home. 

“It’s not finished yet but I’m still proud to have it the way that it is,” Solivan told The Trentonian.“I’m following in my mother’s footsteps who is the first generation to own a home.”

“My mom was the first person in our family to be a homeowner, so to see her working and being responsible and paying the bills and doing everything that she was supposed to do, to this day, I could only want to be like her and be a homeowner,” she said. 

After the construction of her home is completed, Solivan said that the program will move forward with recruiting other families. Through Solivan’s journey, the program facilitators will work out the “kinks,” to ensure a smoother process for future participants. 

“I’m definitely happy with the progress,” Solivan said of the construction process. “We recently just got word that we will start our demolition phase pretty soon. I think that’ll be a very exciting time for not just my family, but the community, because everybody is watching. And they’re very interested to know about the program. So I will be excited to show that we’re moving along, that the program is still alive.”

While people of all ages have expressed interest in the program, Solivan said the population they are primarily targeting is families with children. She emphasized that prospective participants should be employed and have documentation, such as state identification and a W-2 form.

“I want us to be careful with the people that we are choosing and make sure that we have the right candidates that will really want to be a homeowner,” she said. They want to be in the city. They invested in the city. Their children go to the schools here.”

Solivan said that while participants must be able to prove they are ready to embark on homeownership, they aren’t looking for people with a perfect credit score. 

“If that was the case, you wouldn’t need our help,” she said. “We can help them build up their credit and work on all those kinds of things through the financial literacy and the homeownership program.”

While Solivan’s recent advocacy work has centered around housing security, the 38-year-old is no stranger to using her voice to empower her community and catalyze change. In 2018, Solivan began advocating for better pay for home health aids, in addition to fighting to reduce lead in Trenton’s water, soil and air. 

Solivan has also become involved with the Trenton Restorative Street Team, where she has aided in efforts to promote justice and peace in the city. As a board member of the Princeton Justice Initiative, Solivan has also recently hosted share fairs in hopes of providing free legal services for individuals who cannot afford a lawyer. 

Solivan said she considers herself a spokesperson for mothers like herself in Trenton. Though she acknowledged that working with the government to develop the program has been a slow and tedious process, she stressed her determination to continue fighting on behalf of her community. 

“You have to keep pushing. You have to keep fighting. You have to keep making awareness,” she said. “I feel like I’m the voice for the unspoken, these moms that can’t get out there and fight because they’re too busy working to take care of their families.”

Although Solivan is first and foremost committed to supporting the city of Trenton through her initiative, she doesn’t intend on stopping there. She said she hopes to eventually bring the New Beginnings Housing Program to other states, and one day, expand internationally. 

“I feel like I’m slowly but surely spreading my wings and hopefully, I’ll be able to take this to other cities, other states and across the world,” she said. “There’s a lot of people living in poverty and suffering from homelessness, but I always feel we have to start at home first. I made a commitment to my community and I want to be a woman of my word and continue on helping the people.”

As she prepares to further expand her efforts, Solivan emphasized the power of numbers in making her ambitious dreams a reality. 

“Hopefully we can get more investors and more people involved in the city and just rebuild,” she said. “I mean, I can’t do it all alone. New Beginnings can’t do it all alone. But if we all work together, do you know how powerful that would be? So that’s what I’m calling for. In the city of Trenton, we need to come together more and work together.”

News

Anchor House Provides a Safe Space for Adolescents, Young Adults Experiencing Homelessness

By Rebecca Heath

Ever since its 1978 establishment, Trenton-based nonprofit Anchor House has strived to serve as a community safe haven for children and young adults experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness.

Though it began as just a shelter, the organization has since grown to encompass a wide range of programs and services, from trauma-informed counseling to life skills and education assistance.

To fulfill its mission of supporting more than 1,000 youth and families each year, Outreach Services Director Ben Thornton said the nonprofit relies heavily on collaborative, community efforts.

“We have to incorporate intelligent partnering,” Thornton said. “We have to bring the resources of the community together and learn to work within the community to raise awareness for youth experiencing homelessness…and to make sure that the young people themselves know where to find resources.”

Though a majority of the organization’s services are designed for local youth, Thornton said the stigma surrounding homelessness often discourages displaced young people from seeking essential resources.

In order to combat this systemic obstacle, Anchor House assembled an outreach team that aims to inform this population about “what they are experiencing and where those resources are for them to get back on the right path,” Thornton said.

For temporary housing crises, Anchor House provides a 30-day shelter placement to young people who have been removed from or have voluntarily left their homes.

The shelter, which is located on Centre Street in Trenton, lies next door to their transitional living program. This residential facility houses individuals facing homelessness who have recently entered adulthood and are no longer eligible for foster care, yet still require support as they transition to independent living.

“They all live in the same home but they have their individual rooms, and there they learn some really critical life skills,” Thornton explained. “They get therapeutic services, mental health services, and they start to basically stabilize in a program like that and start learning life skills and everything that will take them forward.”

To accommodate young adults who have outgrown the supervised living model, Anchor House launched their “Anchor Line” program, which provides each participant with their own apartment — without the burden of paying rent.

“This is where they are learning to live alone,” Thornton said. “They’re learning to incorporate those life skills, running their daily lives, and getting ready to be able to pay rent and to handle leases and work with landlords.”

At each stage of housing support, Thornton said counselors are tasked with helping their residents achieve self-sufficiency through building their support network and teaching them how to access resources within their communities.

In an effort to create a platform for their clients to provide input and share their experiences as they navigate their path to self-sufficiency, the organization established a youth advisory council in 2014. This empowering initiative offers opportunities to build leadership skills, network with other individuals facing similar struggles and invoke meaningful community change.

“This is where we give the young people in our services a chance to tell their story if they choose to,” Thornton said. “And to build community with other young people from other programs so they can understand the diversity of placements and the trajectory of where they may want to go.”

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Art on the Move: HomeFront’s New Mobile Initiative Fosters Creativity in Underserved Communities

By Rebecca Heath

In an effort to engage and enrich children and families living in under-resourced Mercer County communities, HomeFront recently unveiled “Artie the ArtSpace Mobile.”

HomeFront’s ArtSpace fosters a safe environment for individuals who have experienced homelessness to express creativity, according to the organization’s website.

The nonprofit, which is based in Ewing and managed by Ruthann Traylor, facilitates therapeutic art programs and seeks to empower clients by offering a number of opportunities throughout the year to showcase their skills.

ArtSpace’s new mobile initiative was developed to educate potential clients about the organization’s programs and support services. Chock-full of supplies and clients’ artwork, the vibrant truck will also host hands-on activities for children while serving as a pop-up shop to benefit HomeFront artists.

The journey of bringing Artie to life involved collaborative efforts, said Traylor, who worked alongside local graphic designers Barbara DiLorenzo and Kim Moulder, in addition to Leigh Visual Imaging, to make her vision a reality.

“The process for creating Artie was brewing for a few years,” Traylor said. “Once we received the grant and the truck was donated we worked with a few local designers to help us create our vision.”

The innovative art truck currently partners with community-minded businesses to collect art supplies, and hosts company team-building workshops as part of ArtSpace’s corporate engagement efforts.

Artie is also slated to travel to HomeFront properties and motels to serve families experiencing homelessness, in addition to arts and music festivals, community events, summer camps, craft fairs, schools, day care centers and after-school programs for disadvantaged youth, according to the organization’s website.