Our Work
What We Do
Leaving foster care often means taking on the responsibilities of adulthood without a reliable network of adult support. City Living NY works with young people as they make this transition, typically around age 21, helping them find stable housing, make a home, and pursue their goals.
Some young people come to us while searching for an apartment. We help them explore housing options and navigate the steps toward securing a place to live. Once they have an apartment, we provide household essentials such as cookware, dishes, bedding, curtains, and bathroom supplies. We also help furnish their apartments, so they have a comfortable place to settle into and call home.
For the next two to three years, our social workers offer consistent, individualized support as participants adjust to living independently and paying rent. Together, they address challenges, set education and employment goals, and connect with counseling, job training, and other resources. Participants then graduate to our Alumni Program, where they can continue to receive support and stay connected to City Living NY.
When foster care ends, our work begins.
How We Started
In 2010, City Living NY’s founder, Liz Northcutt, was working at a nonprofit social service agency when she was assigned to help a young woman find housing. We’ll call her Ashley. She was just three months away from aging out of foster care. They submitted an application for public housing, but no apartment became available before her 21st birthday.
For the next several months, Ashley slept on other people’s couches. She had no stable home. In some ways, that uncertainty had been with her for much of her life. Removed from her family’s home as a young child because of neglect, she spent her adolescence moving from one home to another. Those experiences left her facing the transition to adulthood with little support.
When Ashley finally got an apartment, she was no longer eligible for a one-time furniture voucher from the Administration for Children’s Services. Liz asked friends for help and found a futon mattress. It had no frame, but it gave Ashley a place to sleep.
A few months later, Liz visited Ashley. She was thrilled to have a place of her own, but she also felt lost after leaving foster care. The mattress lay on the floor of her studio apartment without a sheet. She had almost nothing else: no pots or pans, and no shower curtain beyond a liner from the dollar store.
Liz saw the gap between finding an apartment and being able to make it a home. With help from friends and donated items she found online, she began gathering household goods for other young people leaving foster care. She saw the difference these essentials made and realized that helping more young people would require a broader, coordinated effort.
That effort became City Living NY. What began with household goods grew into a program that helps young people establish stable homes and supports them as they build independent lives.
