Written by Tanya Terry, with photos courtesy of Building Strong Women 501 (c ) (3)
Featured photo: Charlotte Lancaster feels she has a calling to help homeless women get on their feet because she was once in their shoes.
In light of recent fires in abandoned buildings in Flint that resulted in deaths, Charlotte Lancaster, executive director of Building Strong Women nonprofit shared her personal journey and the organization’s mission.
At 17 years old, after her mother was murdered by her father, Lancaster became homeless and lived a difficult life moving between different places.
“I wouldn’t listen to my older sister,” shared Lancaster. “So, she put me out. I became homeless, and I was staying from house to house, different people. I was out there… I was living a negative lifestyle, and I ended up getting involved in situations that I shouldn’t have ever gotten involved in. Thank God I never got involved in drugs, but I did things that you would have thought that I was on drugs.”
Lancaster eventually made a spiritual commitment in a park in Hammond, Indiana, asking God not only to help her, but for the opportunity to help others in similar situations.
After returning to Flint and turning her life around with support from Social Security and low-income housing, Lancaster founded Building Strong Women to assist homeless women.
The organization serves 100% homeless clients who are referred through shelters, hospitals, websites and Google searches. Building Strong Women provides shelter, classroom training in various skills including graphic art, administrative work and housekeeping. The program also offers social-emotional support, counseling and partnerships with therapists and organizations like Saint Luke’s. Lancaster, who is self-taught in graphic art and design, personally teaches some of the skills.
“Some of the ladies come in homeless, and they can’t afford to pay us,” said Lancaster. “We train them and they in exchange to work for us, and we provide furnished rooms. Pretty much, we provide them shelter along with other organizations, and programs so they can come in and help us out as well.
“So they come in, and we do T-shirts. That’s the graphic art we do. We do cups and license plates and different things like that.”
Building Strong Women faced challenges including a bedbug infestation that required closing one house temporarily.
To address operational expenses and expand the program, Building Strong Women is hosting a Mother Daughter Brunch fundraiser
The mother daughter brunch is also going to be a mental wellness experience,” stated Dr. Tiffany Quinn, who serves on the board of directors for Building Strong Women.
Quinn added: “We have Dr. Nicki Ziegler coming from Atlanta, Georgia to speak to the women. It’s going to be mostly women, either women in business or women that want to be in business. We’re going to have vendors, and the vendors are going to be small business owners. So, it’s going to be a whole experience. And the funding that’s left over from the experience will be able to be utilized some of these daily expenses that it takes to run for houses and the building.”
Quinn, as a community partner, emphasized that the fundraiser aims to strengthen the already-established foundation of Building Strong Women.
Lancaster talked to the Courier about her reaction when she found out recently that three homeless individuals recently died in a fire in an abandoned home on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“It affected me a whole lot when I found out the next day what had happened,” she said. “We’re here for them…and they should be here with us…They don’t have to live in abandoned houses. And the more we help them, the more it helps us to help our community to build.”
To learn more about Building Strong Women, visit https://buildingstrongwomencommunity.org/.
For more information or tickets to the Women’s Mental Health & Empowerment Forum Mother & Daughter Brunch, contact Charlotte Lancaster at 810-610-3467.
