Community Greenhouse Offers Employment Opportunities for Formerly Homeless Individuals

By Jasmine Palacios

Reporting Texas TV

AUSTIN, Texas —  Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF), a non-profit organization that serves people experiencing homelessness, gained a new greenhouse Friday to bring jobs for residents of the community.

MLF also provides affordable housing. Annie Powers, MLF’s assistant communications manager, said nearly 400 previously homeless individuals currently live in the Community First! Village.

“Whether you’re staff, a volunteer, or a neighbor, we all engage together and are just empowering communities into a lifestyle service with the homeless,” Powers said.

Another nonprofit, HomeAid Austin, joined the project to assist with construction efforts. The organization is known for building and renovating housing for people who have experienced homelessness, and contributed the greenhouse.

“It is a small thing we can do for people who have lost so much,” said Kim McCorkle, HomeAid’s outreach and development manager.

The greenhouse stores plants that grow year-round.

HomeAid Austin and Taylor Morrison’s home builder team finish the last touches around the greenhouse in Austin, Texas, on March 22. (Jasmine Palacios/ Reporting Texas TV)

McCorkle said that jobs are not just about making money but also to give the residents a deeper purpose to life. She said this project has impacted her own life.

“To be able to be a small part of that in HomeAid by helping give them this greenhouse just fills up my heart and soul,” McCorkle said.

McCorkle said the greenhouse symbolizes something deeper to her for the community.

“Even if you’re 30, 40, 50, 60, you’re homeless, you come to Community First! and you get a place to plant and grow, and to me the greenhouse parallels that, ” said McCorkle.

Local home builder Taylor Morrison helped fund this project and assisted with the final touches.

“Philanthropy runs through our veins, and by working with HomeAid we’ve really been able to get our team involved with the community to do our part in helping solve homelessness,” said April Whitaker, Taylor Morrison’s division president.

Community’s First! Village residents will start working inside the greenhouse in the coming weeks.

“The greenhouse is a labor of love forever. This will be a continuous work,” Whitaker said.