Seniors Line Up To Live In Community And Become Surrogate Grandparents For Foster Kids

TAMPA, FL — Retired attorney Peggy Blanchard was living in California when she read about Tampa's New Life Village in her AARP Magazine. Her husband had recently died, and she was looking for a new purpose in life.

Already familiar with the Tampa Bay area, Blanchard decided to check out the community, and said she ended up falling in love with the campus and its mission. A first-of-its-kind living arrangement in Florida, New Life Village offers affordable rental housing for children taken out of the foster care system, their caregivers and seniors.

That was 4 1/2 years ago. Today, at the age of 79, Blanchard serves as a tutor, mentor, babysitter, friend and surrogate grandmother to the foster children who live in the village.

“It’s about helping kids and people find their own pathway to become bigger than think they can be,” she said.

The founder of New Life Village, Sister Claire LeBoeuf, convinced the nonprofit’s board to buy the 11-acre development to establish a safe, stable, loving community that offers permanent foster homes to kids while providing low-income housing for seniors capable of serving as support and role models to the young residents who lacked an extended family.

New Life Village at 4926 Venice Lake Ave. in the Palm River area of Tampa, is based on the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child." It's a community made up of disenfranchised children who are in foster care or have experienced trauma, neglect or abuse, and are in need of a stable home.

The campus opened in 2012 after a condominium community that was just beginning to take shape fell into foreclosure.

After initially accommodating 60 children, 30 seniors and 31 families, New Life Village's population expanded Friday with the grand opening ceremony of 16 new townhomes that will give at least 50 more children a place to live.

"We are now a community of about 180 residents, and everyone who lives here is preventing children from going into foster care or helping remove them from foster care," said Mariah Hayden, executive director of New Life Village. “The longer kids are in foster care, the longer they have a physical probability of very negative, traumatic outcomes."

Hillsborough County's Affordable Housing Services partnered in the project because this housing model addresses two pressing needs in Hillsborough County: a lack of adequate foster homes for children and too few affordable housing options for seniors and low-income families.

The county contributed about $1.8 million toward the project as part of its commitment to provide more affordable housing in the county.

Each unit houses a minimum of three children, plus a caregiver, be it an adoptive parent, grandparent, foster-to-permanency parent or permanent guardian. The townhomes are rented to the families at hundreds of dollars below market rates.

"Tampa Bay is facing very challenging affordable housing and foster-care crises," said Hayden. "There are nearly 7,000 children in out-of-home care in the tri-county area. New Life Village offers stability for families in need of affordable housing who are positively affecting the foster-care crisis by removing children from the system."

She said the need is especially pressing in Hillsborough County, which has the highest number of foster care children in the state. There are more than 2,000 children in foster care in Hillsborough County.

Senior residents at New Life Village like Blanchard say the community has enriched her life. In fact, the model is so popular with seniors, there's a waiting list to move in.

The seniors participate in a variety of activities with the children and their caregivers including movie nights, spending time at the splash pad, pool and playground, planting a community garden, taking drumming classes or participating in sports.

“The kids have a need, and the seniors have a need. The kids and the seniors provide for each other’s needs, so it’s a beautiful kind of yin and yang relationship that provides psychological and healthy outcomes for both groups," Hayden said.