“Megan, Sarah, Lona, Nina, Liliana, Miesha, Marvetta, Susan, Nikki, Dakota…like all the girls who have walked through this door, that’s what makes this worth it for me. I know we’re just changing starfish lives here, but we’d like to impact the ocean,” says Monica DuPea, the founder of the Nevada Youth Empowerment Project (NYEP), beaming with a smile despite recent challenges of having had to recently deal with costly sewer repairs.
NYEP is a Reno-based nonprofit founded in 2007 that provides housing, life skills training, and support to help young women transition from foster care or homelessness to independent adulthood.
The project currently consists of two homes for the program participants to live in and one more being constructed which will complete NYEP’s continuum of housing – first meeting young women where they are at and moving them towards where they want to be. These different stages are called the Community Living Program (Faland House), the Affordable Housing Program (Sonder House), and the being worked on Gen Den.
This latest addition will be a 10-unit housing complex for five graduates of the Community Living Program, as well as five local seniors, who are in need of low income units. For the girls to move into Sonder House, they must meet certain expectations of independence and accountability…