NEWTON — A nonprofit with roots a century old here plans to break ground this month on an innovative, intergenerational housing development that serves young adults, families and seniors.
Hope Estates will take shape at the corner of West Broadway and Boyd Streets, on the south end of the EmberHope Youthville campus. It’s envisioned as a place where young adults coming from foster care and other difficult life circumstances will live alongside small families and seniors.
“We are certainly looking for seniors who would like to continue living somewhere where they really have a social purpose,” said Nickaila Sandate, president and CEO of EmberHope, Inc. “If they would like to mentor and help our young adults who are transitioning out of (foster) care, they need a lot of life coaching. We’re really hoping there are some seniors who are interested in that.”
In fact, Sandate said, the Hope Estates project was partly inspired by suggestions to that effect from area residents. “As that population ages, we have a lot of volunteers and individuals who are donors who want to figure out how to contribute and give back.”
EmberHope traces its beginnings to the Kansas Methodist Home for Children. Kansas’ Methodist churches began planning an orphanage in the early 1920s and chose Newton as the site in 1927, partly to deal with the wave of children arriving as part of the Orphan Train Movement that sought to place orphans from the East Coast with foster parents in the Midwest.
A farmer outside Newton, Edward P. Libbey, donated the bulk of his estate to establish the home, the city of Newton gave it 30 acres of land and the orphanage opened in 1929. The orphanage was designed to be self-sustaining, with its residents earning a wage and learning trades on area farms. Cottages and a chapel were added over the years and in 1975, the Martin K. Eby Learning Center was opened there to provide alternative educational opportunities for the home’s residents and some Newton school district students.
In the 1990s, four residential cottages were built for girls offering different levels of treatment and care. The organization’s name changed to Youthville, then EmberHope Youthville. As traditional orphanages were phased out, it also became more involved in foster care, recruiting foster parents and placing children with them. Through a Wichita-based branch called EmberHope Connections, it held the state of Kansas’ contract for Sedgwick County from 1997 to 2013. It resumed that work in 2024 after the previous contractor, Saint Francis Ministries, was sacked over poor performance. About one-fifth of the state’s 6,000 foster children live in Sedgwick County.
Most of the young adults Hope Estates plans to serve will be former foster kids who typically age out of the system around their 18th birthday. As legal adults, Sandate said, “They’ll have to make a choice about if this is where they want to live. We’re excited for them as they transition” to independent living.
Hope Estates plans call for 38 apartments in all. There will be 20 individual apartments, 10 townhomes, six triplexes and two duplexes.
“We’ll have families in those two- and three-bedroom apartments,” Sandate said — likely including grandparents who are raising grandchildren.
The organization believes mentoring and mutual support will occur naturally between generations, but the project will offer optional programming in areas such as financial literacy, cooking and nutrition, employment readiness, education and social events. The site will include shared gardens and playgrounds.
The project is being built with the help of low-income tax credits through the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation. EmberHope had expected a lengthy waiting period for those credits but was awarded funding on its first application.
Rent will be based on a percentage of residents’ income. Plans call for nine different buildings, which will be occupied as they are completed. “It’ll be done and filled by the end of 2026,” Sandate said. People who are interested in potentially living at Hope Estates should visit emberhope.org for updates.
The benefits of intergenerational experiences have received much attention in recent years, but this kind of housing is relatively rare. EmberHope staff looked to Bridge Meadows, which has created several apartment developments housing adoptive families, seniors and young adults in and around Portland, Oregon. That organization was in turn inspired by Hope Meadows, the Illinois intergenerational community considered the first of its kind.
“We’ve been in contact with them and learned a lot,” Sandate said.
Residents of Hope Estates won’t be required to participate in any programming, events or mentoring — but Sandate hopes they will. She recalled a recent conversation with a retired nurse, who told her:
I can’t adopt. I’m not at that place in life any more. But if there’s some way I can give back or contribute, that would be great.”
Sandate noted that the land where Hope Estates will sit was at one time up for sale. Now it’s headed for a different purpose.
“We are very excited. As an organization that has ample green space, it’s fulfilling to bring all those groups together in a meaningful way to support each other.”
