Dear Friends of Homeward Bound Villages,
As we reflect on the past year, we are grateful for the incredible strides we have made together. Through dedication, resilience, and unwavering community support, our nonprofit has not only grown but is now ready to begin construction on our first cooperative housing development, Karwick Village. As we enter the new year, we are building upon this momentum, embracing new opportunities and challenges with the same passion and purpose that brought us here.
Let’s take a closer look at our major accomplishments in 2024.
- Gained several new strategic funding partners. These partners and many individual donors helped us achieve the milestone of being fully funded for Phase 1 construction of Karwick Village. Phase 1 includes all site development work and residential units for up to 12 people.
- Implemented new branding and strategic communication. Launching our website and social media for Homeward Bound Villages has allowed us to keep the community informed about our work and the impacts of housing insecurity, build connections, and advocate for greater support of innovative, affordable housing solutions. People are learning about our work and finding ways to enhance our mission through our communication channels.
- Launched our Community Builder program. This program invites supporters to contribute to our organizational sustainability through recurring monthly donations. Homeward Bound operates today through grant funding and donations. Community Builder donations are monthly recurring donations that we receive monthly, allowing us to budget and forecast incoming donations more reliably. We met our campaign goal and gained 20 new Community Builders.
- Developed construction advisory relationships and secured a construction manager. This has been instrumental in moving ahead with Karwick Village development work.
Building upon the momentum of this past year, 2025 kicks off with much promise. We are now positioned to begin site development work at Karwick Village. We’re already celebrating a few ‘firsts’ that have happened in the first month of 2025 alone.
- We hired our first Employee! On January 20th, we welcomed Molly Heath to our team as an Assistant Director. Molly’s energy, curiosity, and experience perfectly match everything we have in store this year and beyond. Molly will support several aspects of our operation, but the most important will be getting everything in place to welcome residents and support daily operations at Karwick Village. Molly’s passion for the future residents is what drew her to the role with us.
- Homeward Bound’s first official groundbreaking date is March 15! Stay tuned for our announcement and details.
- We moved into our first-ever office! We are located at the shared office space at 422 Franklin St., Suite C, in Michigan City. This location is home to many nonprofit organizations in our area, making this a wonderful opportunity to build collaborative connections.
As we work toward opening Karwick Village and welcoming our first residents this year, we’re aware of the increasing housing crisis in our nation and La Porte County. Earlier this month, we put out an article on our blog that discussed the rise in homelessness, 18% nationally, and we also saw the opening of an additional emergency shelter in La Porte County to meet the increased demand locally. These facts demonstrate the immediate and continuously growing need in our community to have affordable housing now. We will be relentless in our efforts to bring about more community-based affordable housing.
Looking ahead to 2025, Karwick Village construction and welcoming residents will be our top priority, but we will also continue to focus on sustainable growth. Here are a few of our strategies this year to support our growth goals:
- Continue to grow construction related partnerships
- Expand our outreach for greater community awareness, connecting with potential future residents, and growing our partnerships.
- Advocate for solutions that remove barriers to affordable housing.
- Grow our Community Builder donor program, welcoming everyone to be part of an affordable housing solution in our community.
I am certain that Homeward Bound Villages is going to do amazing things in 2025!
Thank you for your support in 2024 as we worked toward further organizational sustainability, alignment of our communications resources, and leveraging our community stakeholders to begin construction on Karwick Village in 2025. The continued support of our community, elected officials, faith partners, referral partners, and donors will be more crucial than ever before as we continue to fulfill our mission to create community through affordable housing.
Thank you for your continued support in 2025!
Sincerely,
President, Homeward Bound Villages