By Jennifer Fernandez
In rural Moore County, another home is being built to provide a place to stay and thrive for young people who would otherwise be homeless.
Pinehurst-based TambraPlace had hoped to have the new home ready by December 2026, but their financing model this time is more complicated, said Tambra Chamberlain, the driving force behind the creation of the organization named in her honor.
Unlike the home for young men that opened in June 2023 and was built with a lot of donated materials and labor, this home will be primarily funded through a loan. TambraPlace is still working with a nonprofit to secure a zero percent interest loan to build the five-bedroom, three-bath home, Chamberlain said.
There aren’t a lot of programs to house unsheltered youth that look like what TambraPlace has created — especially in rural areas, said Chamberlain, a social worker with Moore County Schools who helps children who are experiencing homelessness. Most residential programs are for youths involved in the justice system for some type of trouble, such as substance use, she said.
Eventually, she’d like to help other rural N.C. communities replicate the TambraPlace transitional living program.
Sowing seeds of success
TambraPlace created its first home for youth in 2021 to serve young women ages 18-24 who are homeless, unaccompanied or considered at-risk. That shelter was created in a 1940s bungalow home donated by a local church.
One of the young women who stayed at the shelter has since graduated and become a paramedic and lives with her grandmother to help take care of her.
“She’s doing great,” Chamberlain said. “That’s what our program hopes to do.”
Another one of the residents in the home for young women is getting ready to graduate with a double associate degree in cybersecurity and networking. She became an unaccompanied minor after her parents were deported, and at one point she was living in her car before finding shelter at TambraPlace.
“They learn themselves through that resiliency that … they could do anything that they want,” Chamberlain said.
In June 2023, the organization opened a second facility, Stone House, to shelter young men. The home was built in the unincorporated village of West End with donated or discounted materials on donated land and is named for the Rev. Rod Stone, a co-founder of TambraPlace.
Stone is pastor of Community Presbyterian Church of Pinehurst, which has helped Tambra Place in other ways. One of the church’s 20 service projects, for example, helps with gardening and other work around the youth shelters.
Last year, the Jim Schneider Therapeutic Recreational Area at Stone House opened. It includes a basketball court, fire pit and cookout pavilion. The area honors TambraPlace co-founder Jim Schneider, who died in January 2024.
That recreational area will be shared by residents from both homes, Chamberlain said.
Six young men ranging in age from 18-20 have lived at Stone House. Two reunited with family members and four remain, Chamberlain said.
One of those young men is an 18-year-old high school student who said he left foster care as soon as he could because the family he was placed with was homophobic. He stayed in cramped quarters with a friend for a while before a teacher helped him get into Stone House.
“It’s been nice not having to sleep on the floor,” said DW, who moved into Stone House last summer. (Chamberlain asked that residents’ names not be used to protect their privacy.)
DW said he didn’t know what he would have done if he hadn’t gotten into the TambraPlace program, which he said is also helping him with his physical and mental health. He plans to study mortuary science at Fayetteville Technical Community College after he graduates high school this year.
Places like Stone House are important refuges for young people like him, DW said.
“It’s given us a second chance, helped us get on our feet,” he said.
Serving a need
In the three years since TambraPlace opened its first shelter, the number of homeless adults and youth has increased in Moore County.
Annual counts of homeless people found 46 without permanent shelter in 2023. The number rose to 59 last year — 19 were children. Data from Moore County Schools, which isn’t included in the annual homeless count, showed 112 children staying with family or friends, according to the county’s 2024 point-in-time homeless count.
The data from this year’s homeless count is still being analyzed.
TambraPlace has housed about a dozen youth in its two shelters and provided resources to help more than 25 additional young people, Chamberlain said.
Young men and women who are homeless or in imminent danger of becoming homeless can be referred to the program through the school system or agencies such as Family Promise of Moore County, a shelter for women and children. They cannot have a felony record or serious substance use issue. Participants can enter the program from age 18 to 24 and stay until age 25.
Residents don’t pay rent or any bills associated with housing. Food is donated, but residents can also buy their own food.
While in the program, participants get help pursuing education and finding work. They’re taught life skills such as organization, meal planning and managing finances. They also are taught self-care and how to build on their social, physical, emotional and spiritual strengths.
There’s lots of community buy-in. Along with the various churches and agencies that work with TambraPlace, the Southern Pines Public Library last summer organized a donation drive for hygiene and home goods items for residents in both homes.
Expanding reach
The new home will be built next door to Stone House as a young women’s shelter. It will replace the original church bungalow, which will be repurposed for meeting space and potentially as an emergency shelter when a young person needs a short-term solution, Chamberlain said.
There’s room for a third home at the West End site, but that would be “way down the road,” she said.
The focus now is getting the new home for young women built. The organization set aside a $75,000 donation to use for the down payment. Some larger items such as a washer and dryer have been donated already, but Chamberlain said they will wait until closer to opening day to seek most of the needed large-item donations.
One delay has been waiting to get an audit as part of seeking the loan through the nonprofit, she said. But having a completed audit will also help as TambraPlace seeks grants in the future.
They wouldn’t have qualified for many grants previously because they were too new and didn’t have an audit to prove their stability, she said.
“That will really help us grow,” she said. “That’s one of the things we really realized … we do need to access funding from governmental sources.”
All of these experiences will also help with showing other rural communities how to replicate their program, she said.
“Because we do have so many unaccompanied homeless youth in rural areas.”
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