For thirty-five years, a cluster of apartments in Belleair Bluffs, Florida, has been doing something quiet and stubborn: giving single mothers room to start again.
In October 1991, Phyllis Alderman was offered a building in downtown Clearwater to shelter people who were homeless. She asked the real estate agent a different question. Would you consider single moms homeless? The answer was yes.
That question became Shepherd’s Village. On October 25 the ministry marked its 35th Founder’s Day and honored Alderman, who still walks visitors through the decades, one photograph at a time.
Today it is a 12-unit community on Los Altos Drive, with a board of directors, a virtual university and a thrift shop nearby. Residents must be working and pass background checks, and they can stay up to two years before moving on with help.
“It’s not a shelter,” Alderman said. “This is a no-judgment zone that’s about choosing your future and knowing you are not alone.”
April McKnight arrived in 2014 with three young daughters and is now executive director. “Shepherd’s Village is for motivated single moms wanting to change things in their life,” she said.
Alderman began the work with about $60 in the bank. She says that when you put the history and the vision together, you see how far grace can stretch.
The doors have stayed open for three decades, and the wish for every mother who walks through them stays the same: a future she chose, and neighbours who know her name.
