Lakewood Ranch nonprofit works to build housing for foster youth

Sarasota’s Lura Dorman has seen Harbor58, a nonprofit based out of Oasis Church in Lakewood Ranch, as a place where she can grow. 

Once per month, Dorman goes to Harbor58, which works with individuals aging out of foster care, for classes on financial literacy. Dorman, who is 19, said the classes are helping her manage her money and prepare for her future. 

Dorman also has been able to make connections and new friends with other participants and volunteers. 

“I want to get my life together, get a car, get a house and be proud of what I do,” Dorman said. 

As Harbor58 grows, Dorman hopes to be a part of the nonprofit’s future, possibly serving as a mentor for other youth. 

The future of the nonprofit will include a small housing community built behind Oasis Church. IT will help individuals aging out of foster care transition from foster care to living independently. 

Addressing a need

Harbor58 started in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic shed light on the gaps in foster care services. 

Courtesy image

Missy Parmenter, the president of Harbor58, said Oasis Church always has been involved in helping with babies and children in foster care, but staff and congregants didn’t work much with those aging out of the foster system. 

During the pandemic, Parmenter said the church received calls asking if it could help with rent assistance for young adults who no longer lived with a host family. 

“Kids should be able to age into adulthood from this foster care system in an easy transition,” Parmenter said. “A lot of times with stuff like this, it’s about the right people just haven’t been connected to the right resources, but the more we looked around in the area, we noticed it’s a huge need.”

Although the nonprofit is located at Oasis Church, Parmenter said the nonprofit is not affiliated with it. 

“We wanted it to be something that we could help even if they didn’t have a religious background,” she said. 

Harbor58 works with individuals in foster care who are in high school up to 22 years old. The nonprofit provides life skills courses and career development opportunities once per month. The social gatherings have included cooking classes, movie nights and a beach day. 

The nonprofit also has a mentor program in which those in foster care are partnered with a mentor that meets with them in the community. There are 12 youth and 24 mentors participating in the program.

Sarasota’s Amy Craig has been serving as a mentor to Dorman. She attends Oasis Church for its work in foster care and wanted to help any way she could, so she started volunteering for Harbor58. 

Craig said being a mentor has been rewarding. She has spent time getting to know Dorman when they go shopping and have lunch together. Craig is able to celebrate Dorman successes such as when she was laid off from a job and a week later was hired at another job. 

“It really has opened my eyes to what they go through,” Craig said. “Most of them seem to know what they want. It seems they’re a lot smarter than I was, maybe because they had to grow up faster. They’re searching for attention and somebody just to be there for them and listen to them. To be able to do that, it’s a special thing.”

Parmenter has loved seeing the growth from the youth participants. 

“Some of the kids that started with us wouldn’t look us in the eye,” Parmenter said. “In the beginning, they had their heads down and weren’t confident in themselves. But now, their whole countenance has changed. Every area of their life was different just from having a small connection with people who cared about them.”

Building a community

Harbor58’s next step is building 12 small villas to provide housing for individuals aging out of foster care.

The project is going through permitting with Manatee County and, if approved, will be located behind Oasis Church, which is on Lorraine Road. 

Parmenter said church members with knowledge on creating and submitting development plans have donated time to help Harbor58 get the project started. 

The nonprofit is working to raise funds for the project, which is estimated to cost $5.5 million. So far, it has raised about $100,000 without going into any kind of substantial fundraising effort.

Parmenter said the project could receive approval from the Manatee County Commission and is hopeful the nonprofit can break ground in the spring of 2024. 

“If we can get downstream and put interventions alongside these kids and teach them how to transition successfully into adulthood, we save the county thousands and thousands of dollars,” Parmenter said. “When you look at all these major areas that are social pains for us like homelessness, drug addiction and sex trafficking, we all want to end those things. If you look at a common denominator with all of those kids, almost all of them have been involved in the foster care system.”

She said one in five individuals aging out of foster care will be homeless within a year. Half of those aging out of foster care will be unemployed by 24 years old, and only 54% of foster youth receive a high school diploma.

“If we can give them the skills, the jobs and the understanding and healing from their past trauma, we might not ever get to that place,” Parmenter said of the statistics. 

Parmenter said providing villas for the young adults aging out of foster care will allow them the independence they need while also providing a supportive environment needed to transition to living on their own. 

“What if we put them in the middle of a community that’s thriving and prosperous and taught them, ‘you should be here, you belong here,’ and this is how you live in a community and give back,” she said. 

Parmenter said having the Harbor58 housing in Lakewood Ranch will provide various opportunities for its residents. There are places for employment that are easily accessible even without a car. There are educational institutions for residents to receive further education after high school. 

Each of the residents will be strongly vetted before being accepted to live in a unit, Parmenter said. 

“We’re going to be wise with the kids we put there. We want them to be kids who are driven and who are ready to take the next step to become successful,” she said. “Shouldn’t they know they’re worth having these kinds of amenities in this kind of community? I can’t think of a better place for them to experience generosity and love than Lakewood Ranch.”

Each resident will stay on its campus for approximately 18 months before they transition to renting their own apartment or buying a house. 

“This is kind of like a safety net stepping stone,” Parmenter said. “All of us had seasons when we first became independent where we would try a little bit and fail. When you do that, if you don’t have a safety net, your whole world can fall apart. This is a place where they can learn how to fail and get back up, move forward and learn from that failure.”

Residents will pay a program fee that is on a sliding scale. The longer they’re in the program, the program fee will eventually mimic the cost of the average rent in Manatee County. 

“This way they’re not going from paying $0 a month to paying the average (rent),” Parmenter said. “I would love for us to be operationally at a place that we can put (their program fees) in an escrow account for them so when they graduate, they can use that for their first and last (for rent) or a down payment.”

While living in the Harbor58 housing, they will have mentors and have access to mental health counseling. 

The villas will open in a phased approach so the first residents can help newer residents adjust and provide guidance. 

“We want to start small and make sure we give a good foundation for those who are here,” Parmenter said. 

When they move in, each resident will be able to design their unit so they have ownership of the unit. When they move out, they’ll be able to take all the furniture and items in the unit with them. Parmenter said the furniture and housing items will be either donated, provided by community partners or purchased with fundraising. The residents also will be able to attend extra classes, such as financial literacy classes, to earn money for extra housing items such as an airfryer or blender. 

The community will include a clubhouse with common areas to host life skills classes, family-style dinners and other classes and programs. It also will have an industrial kitchen where Harbor58 can host cooking lessons as well as laundry facilities.