Children's home expands focus

The New Mexico Christian Children’s Home is expanding its horizons with more housing in Portales for single parents.

The non-profit organization has recently broken ground on a 7-acre empty lot on West 19th Street and South Avenue B where they plan to build 16 duplexes for their Single Parent Program.

link Liles Inc. Laborer Jacob Brady, left, carries more connecting parts for a water pipeline to coworker Jerry Olivas Wednesday morning in Portales. The two men are installing underground utilities for a duplex project that will provide single parents and their children with homes.

The program entails NMCCH providing housing and utilities to single parents, who are trying to attend school or get on their feet.

Single Parent Homes Director Bill Marshall said the program currently has 13 apartments, and the $5.2 million project would add 32 more.

Marshall said the project is currently in the beginning phase of having underground utilities put in, but money has already been raised to begin building the first duplex.

“We are probably going to have two to three duplexes under way at the same time,” Marshall said. “It will just depend on what (funding) comes in between now and then.”

Marshall said he has high hopes for raising money for duplex two and three within the next month, which works out well, because they expect utilities to be completed by the end of April.

“Our donors are very generous and when they see a need, they really get behind a project,” Marshall said, adding that all of NMCCH’s programs are operated by private funding from churches and individuals.

“What we want to do is expand it, so we can help more people than just the 13 we have right now,” he said, adding that NMCCH’s programs draw in children and family’s from around the world. The program includes a woman originally from Japan.

Marshall said the Single Parent Program houses single parents and their children , and it has had a large success rate, impacting many people’s lives.

Mary Scott has benefited from the program.

Scott, a mother of two teenage boys, is attending Eastern New Mexico University, seeking a bachelor’s degree in family consumer science. She hopes to become a home economics teacher.

“I would have been working two full-time jobs just to provide to my kids what we have now,” Scott said, adding school may not have been a possibility for her in that case.

Scott said when she was trying to start over with her boys, she came to visit a friend in Portales, who told her about NMCCH’s programs. She applied and they accepted.

“From my perspective, having done a lot of traveling, I’ve never seen a program like this one,” Scott said.

Scott added that she and her two boys have also experience spiritual growth, because a stipulation of the program is the family must attend church each Sunday.

“It was so nice to become part of a church family,” Scott said. “I think sometimes families that come from broken homes, that’s what they need.”

Marshall said he hopes his organization’s apartment complexes can also eventually serve as foster homes for pregnant teens.

He said the duplexes will be large and some will include garages.

“This is going to be kind of a feather in the cap for Portales,” Marshall said. “They are going to be very nice apartments. I just think it’s a pretty big deal to build a whole community... for the people we serve.”