She Bought A House And Turned The Extra Bedrooms Into Transitional Housing For Girls Who Aged Out Of Foster Care

An Instagram account called @thenokidscollective shares stories about adults living child-free lives, and one of their most recent tales really made me tear up with how touching it is.

Across a series of swipeable photos, @thenokidscollective explained how a 33-year-old woman named Chantelle purchased a pretty large house for someone single in Birmingham, Alabama, complete with four bedrooms.

24 months after becoming a homeowner, she came across an article talking about foster care's aging-out cliff. In America, there are approximately 400,000 children in foster care annually.

Over 20,000 young people between the ages of 18 and 21 age out every year without becoming adopted by a family who will love them forever.

Many of those young adults are forced into homelessness, with no guarantee of where they will sleep. Foster youth are 5 to 11 times more likely to be homeless than other young adults, and it's heartbreaking that they're left to fend for themselves without a support system.

That's such a critical and pivotal moment in anyone's life: the ages of 18 to 21, and it's jarring that anyone would be dumped into adulthood like that.

Chantelle decided to reach out to a nonprofit in her area, and with their help, she made three of her bedrooms into transitional housing for girls who have aged out.

All the girls are between the ages of 18 and 21, and Chantelle provides them with the ability to live with her for six months and still get the support of a caseworker.

"My only rule was that Sunday dinner was mandatory, and nobody had to explain their day if they didn't want to," Chantelle revealed to @thenokidscollective.

Ursula Page - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only - pictured above is a house with manicured lawn

"The first resident, Yasmin, arrived with two trash bags and didn't speak to me for eleven days. On day twelve, she came downstairs during Sunday dinner and asked, quietly, if I'd help her practice for a job interview."

Chantelle sat with Yasmin for two hours at the table that night to make her feel comfortable walking into that interview. Yasmin wound up getting that job.

Four months later, Yasmin moved into her very own apartment, but she still comes back on Sundays to have dinner with Chantelle.

She now brings a friend with her, a young lady who will be aging out of foster care this upcoming Spring. Chantelle has assisted 11 different former foster girls since she opened her house up to welcome them in.

"I never had kids of my own. I've had eleven young women pass through a house built for a family I never had, each one leaving a little more ready than they arrived," Chantelle continued.

"That felt, eventually, like exactly what the extra bedrooms were for."

You can read the original post on Instagram here.

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