NAMPA, Idaho — Construction is underway in Nampa for a new housing community geared toward giving folks a chance at a new beginning and building a better life.
“We don’t want to just meet needs. We want to help people have an opportunity to change their [lives] and get out of need and achieve some of the dreams they have,” said Lois Tupyi, the executive director of non-profit Love INC of Treasure Valley.
The New Hope program is a four-tier program aimed at helping people who may be in deep financial debt, recovering from drug abuse or anyone looking to gain control of their lives. The new community is the final tier in the year's long program.
“The New Hope community is actually a vision that we've carried for over 14 years and we just this year started to put up the first fourplex units," Tupyi said. "We have the capacity to put in 15 four-plexes, 60 homes while having a community center where the families can gather."
That community center will be built next spring and serve as a gathering place for the families who live there. The community center was all made possible by the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust, a grant-making foundation.
“It's really going to be a hub of transformation for the Love INC community,” said Rudy Carrasco, the program director at MJ Murdock Charitable Trust.
The community center will be a place for those in the program to learn how to budget, build family structures and be mentored, according to Carrasco.
“To help people in long term development, in [the] transformation of their life circumstances, wow, that's really not an easy thing to do and the Love INC people have developed an approach," he said. "They're patient, they're humble and they say, 'You know what? I think we can work together to help people and strengthen our community.'”
The first eight families are expected to move into this community at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
“It's a place where people work hard to make progress in their life and change their future,” Tupyi said.
The housing community will not be open to everyone. It's based on a certain tier that a person reaches in the program. However, the program itself is open to everyone. The New Hope program has been around since 2002.
You can find more information about the program here.
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