BELOIT, Wis. — Family Services of Southern Wisconsin is transforming the former Royce Elementary School in Beloit into apartments and a community space for families in need, called Next Steps Family Resilience Center.
It will include 18 transitional apartments for unhoused single parents and their children to live in for up to two years as they work to get back on their feet and find permanent housing.
“Instead of knowing that you have a 30- to 60-day stay where you have to just find the next apartment whether we can make it or not, you have the time or space to seek a promotion, finish a certificate, repair your credit,” said Kelsey Hood-Christenson, president and CEO of Family Services of Southern Wisconsin.
The center will offer financial counseling and mental health therapy, as well as children’s services and play areas, all under one roof.
According to Family Services of Southern Wisconsin, at least 287 families in Rock County are homeless and waiting for housing assistance. Additionally, unhoused families with children wait an average of 114 days for housing services in Rock County.
The organization also found that 63% of the total child care needs in Beloit are not being met with services available. That’s why, with the help of other local nonprofits, the Next Steps Family Resilience Center will include a child care program for approximately 70 kids.
“We know that early childhood literacy and development in the parent-child relationship is essential for building resilient kids and that the experience of poverty, the experience of being unhoused, is too often generational,” said Hood-Christenson. “We see a generational cycle and so it was with all of that knowledge that we started walking down the path of what would a dream facility look like.”
There will also be a focus on community building.
“Our families have private space to build those relationships for respect and dignity for those pieces, but we have very intentional community spaces so that we can come together,” said Hood-Christenson. “We can serve our neighbors. Everybody can come mingle. We can help people build social capital, build relationships and address a lot of isolation that a number of families feel.”
The Next Steps Family Resilience Center is set to open to families in April.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated the Next Steps Family Resilience Center would have free child care. That has been updated. (March 14, 2025)
