Mary and Jose Tamayo House

Location:
1700 Yulupa Avenue
Santa Rosa, CA 95405

Phone: 707-528-7500

In December 2003 Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County approached Social Advocates for Youth about a joint venture. A former senior assisted living center was on the market, which CAPSC wanted to purchase with Burbank Housing Development Corp., provided SAY used the facility for a transitional living center for aged-out foster care youth. CAPSC knew of SAY's desire to start such a program and attempts to locate a building, and felt that this former assisted living center in Bennett Valley provided the perfect venue. SAY agreed on the spot. Watch the new Tamayo House video!

What followed was over a year's work of program planning, decisions about renovations, and finding money to start the program.

In May 2005, the Mary and Jose Tamayo House opened in Santa Rosa. It is the first and only transitional living center in Sonoma County for youth who have aged out of foster care.

We know that in fiscal year 2002/2003 the State of California spent $2.2 billion on a foster care system that served 40,000. We also know that for too many of these children, the foster care system is not a healing place. Then at age 18, teens who have spent years bouncing from one foster care institution to another, are literally evicted from this "system of care."

At SAY it is our experience that too many of these young people go from foster care to living on the streets because they don't have a family they can fall back on, or a safety net in the community. We believe that addressing the issue of aged-out foster care with this type of program, SAY is taking viable steps toward reducing the adult homeless population in our community.

As noted in the 2002 Little Hoover Commission report, statistics show that four years after leaving foster care, one-third of all foster care youth fail to complete high school, 25% are homeless, 50% are unemployed, and 33% receive public assistance.

In Sonoma County, SAY intends to make a huge difference in these numbers and in the lives of former foster care youth with our new 24-bed, transitional living center on Yulupa Avenue in Santa Rosa.

In this supportive housing program, SAY offers aged-out foster care youth a safe place to live, counseling, case management, job readiness training, adult mentoring, and independent living skills instruction. The Tamayo House is an opportunity for these young adults to begin learning how to manage their lives effectively and successfully, knowing they are supported.  We believe the Tamayo House will give these young adults renewed hope in their own lives.

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