Conversion work has begun on America's first Foyer project, a 40-unit residence providing accommodation integrated with training for young people aged 18 - 24 who have left the foster care system, or are otherwise at risk of homelessness.

Common Ground Community, the supportive housing provider behind this scheme, has already successfully converted two large former hotels in Manhattan to provide hundreds of people on low incomes with safe-attractive and affordable housing linked to support services, including health care, job training and job placement. Their Foyer programme will be based in the recently purchased 'Chelsea Residence' on West 24th Street in Manhattan, formerly the residential annexe of the McBurney Y, the oldest YMCA in New York City. From its present location, it has provided lodging, recreation and spiritual support for thousands of young men arriving in NYC since 1904. When, in 200, the YMCA decided to sell up and relocate, Common Ground stepped in and together with the HMCA, community lenders and the City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (DHPD), devised a plan to preserve the McBurney residential annexe as affordable housing for people on low incomes and formerly homeless people. The site is being refurbished in stages and will contain 207 units of housing, 40 of which will be used for the Foyer programme, due to open later this year.

The Chelsea Foyer programme aims to prevent homelessness by giving young people with a variety of support needs the opportunity to gain the skills needed for successful long-term independent living. According to Rosanne Haggerty, Executive Director of Common Ground Community, 'We are focused on gaps in services: on those homeless who consistently fail to achieve stability: on preventing those most likely to become homeless -- particularly those in foster care and ex-offenders -- from becoming homeless in the first place'. Over an 18-omonth to 2-year period, residents will have access to employment, educational, mentoring and life-skills training programmes, with the aim of moving on to permanent housing and stable employment. For job training, placement, educational and GED (General Educational Development testing) preparation services, Common Ground will use its partnerships with local employers and corporations, including the three Ben & Jerry's PartnerShops that Common Ground Ventures owns and operates in Manhattan. On-site case management and social services will be provided to Foyer residents by Good Shepherd Services, a non-profit youth development agency providing a broad range of services to over 10,000 of New York's most vulnerable children and families, including residential and foster care services, educational and employment readiness programmes, and community-based preventative services.

The idea of creating a Foyer following the British model originated several years ago when Jerilyn Perine, the current commissioner of the NYC DHPD, was on a family holiday in Belfast. She contacted the local housing authority there to enquire about housing projects she might visit, and was directed to the Belfast Foyer. Rosanne Haggerty, Common Ground's Executive Director, first heard of the Foyer project from Ms. Perine and, while on a visit to Belfast herself (to run a marathon), she also visited Belfast Foyer and was impressed by the project's success.

This led to two fact-finding trips in April and May 2000. The first included representatives from Common Ground, DHPD and other city agencies, Good Shepherd Services and the Corporation of Supportive Housing, who visited a number of UK Foyers, including Belfast and some London Foyers. In May 2000, a delegation that included Richard Roberts, then Commissioner of the DHPD, and two senior officials from New York's Deputy Mayor's Office visited Belfast and Strand Foyers in Belfast and Focus E15 Foyer in East London. Mr. Roberts said, 'We believe the Foyer model holds tremendous promise for the provision of appropriate housing and service in New York City, and the US, for young people'.

Although similar 'independent living programmes' exist in the US, Chelsea Foyer is the first to take the Foyer name, and to model itself on the British Foyer concept. We look forward to its opening and wish it every success.