Hope For Single Mothers: Jeremiah Project Awarded $2.2 Million Dollar Grant

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The Jeremiah Project has been awarded a large grant for a new facility in Fargo.

It’ll help single moms with affordable housing so they can get back into school.

The North Dakota Housing Finance agency awarded the Jeremiah Project $2.2 million dollars for its proposed housing facility in south Fargo.

“To apply for $2.2 million, and we were awarded $2.2 million that was huge,” says Diane Solinger, Jeremiah Project Executive Director.

They are hoping to break ground by April, but they still need to raise more money for the $5 million project.

“$3 million in terms of what we raised for the project,” says Solinger

Solinger says she is confident the remaining funds will be raised.

Diane says that by 2017 this empty lot will be fully built with single mothers and their children living in it as an effort to end the next generation of poverty.

22–year–old Stephanie NavarroCastro graduated from the Jeremiah Project’s empowerment class.

A requirement to be eligible for the affordable housing.

“I was changing but after this program I definitely know what I have to change in my life, and stick to what I was taught in that class,” says Stephanie.

When she was pregnant with her now 2-year-old son Camden, she was forced to drop out of school due to financial issues.

She says to be a potential applicant for the affordable housing gives her hope of a better life where she can be a role model for her son.

“He’s getting a little older and I’m teaching him his ABC’s and 1,2,3’s it’s just like I should go back so that he knows not to give up on his dreams,” says Stephanie.

Something that the affordable housing facility will help her achieve.

Census data shows there are more than 2,300 single mothers with children living in poverty in the metro.