When Safety Nets Break: Why Our Community Must Rally Behind My Sister Susan’s House
Picture this: a 17-year-old, pregnant, terrified, standing outside a locked door that was once home. Maybe her parents found out. Maybe she ran to escape something worse. Maybe she’s just run out of options. She’s carrying a new life and fighting to hold on to her own.
For fifteen years, there’s been a place that would have taken her in. A place that promised more than a bed—a shot at dignity. That place is My Sister Susan’s House in Greensboro, North Carolina.
And right now, the rug’s being ripped out from under them.
The Lifeline: What My Sister Susan’s House Actually Is
My Sister Susan’s House—“MSSH” to the people who know it—isn’t some faceless institution. It’s a home for pregnant or parenting youth ages 16–21 who are homeless, escaping abuse, or otherwise in crisis.
The program, operated by Youth Focus, opened in 2010 as one of the first of its kind in the region: a 4,400-square-foot, home-like space where up to eight young women and their babies can live safely while rebuilding their lives.
Each mom has her own private, studio-style room and bath. A live-in staff member keeps the environment stable and nurturing. The stay can last up to 18 months, during which every basic need is met: housing, food, healthcare, clothing, and childcare support.
But MSSH isn’t just about survival. Residents work toward finishing high school or a GED, take vocational classes, learn financial literacy, and practice parenting and independent-living skills. They get counseling and mentorship. They leave not just housed, but ready.
Since opening, over 150 moms and babies have passed through those doors. Many arrived scared and exhausted. Many left strong.
The Stories That Prove It Works
One of the earliest graduates was a teenage mother escaping domestic violence. At My Sister Susan’s, she learned self-advocacy, completed job training, and found stable work. A year later, she was renting her own apartment; her child thriving.
Another resident remembers the day she finally got the keys to her first independent home: she ran from room to room screaming with joy. That’s the power of dignity restored.
Each of these women walked in as a statistic and walked out as a success story. MSSH doesn’t just change lives—it creates futures.
And the numbers show the need is overwhelming. In the last full year before the funding crisis, MSSH received 134 referrals for pregnant or parenting teens. Capacity: only enough for 18. For every seven who needed help, only one could get in.
Now imagine what happens when even that one loses her spot.
The Crisis: Federal Funding Cut Despite a Perfect Score
For more than a decade, My Sister Susan’s House received steady federal funding through youth-housing and maternity-support grants. They passed every audit. Their outcomes were stellar.
Then came 2025, and a government decision that defies logic.
Their annual funding application received a perfect score of 100. No weaknesses. No performance flags. Yet the funding was denied.
MSSH was told it could not reapply until 2027, leaving a two-year funding vacuum. Overnight, they lost roughly $250,000, almost half their annual operating budget.
The organization had no warning, no explanation that made sense. After thirteen years of flawless partnership, the door just slammed shut.
For a program already stretched thin, that’s catastrophic. It means fewer beds. It means layoffs. It means pregnant teens—literal children, some victims of abuse—will be turned away because there’s no money to keep the lights on.
Is This Political? Maybe Not Directly, But It’s Definitely Ideological
There’s no public smoking gun tying this decision to a specific politician. No leaked memo saying “cut the funding to My Sister Susan’s.”
But it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to see the pattern.
Across the country, the federal government has been quietly pulling back funding for programs dealing with teen pregnancy, transitional housing, and family services, especially those that don’t fit neat ideological molds.
North Carolina nonprofits have been hit hard. Nationwide, social-service grants are being reframed under “family values” or “non-ideological content” standards that critics say punish organizations simply for being inclusive, trauma-informed, or comprehensive in the education they offer.
It’s austerity with a moral agenda, and its victims are often the most vulnerable.
Whether or not My Sister Susan’s House was specifically targeted, the result is the same: fewer lifelines for people who need them most.
And yes, we should say it plainly—this is happening under the Trump administration, which has reprioritized federal spending away from many social programs in favor of what it calls “community-driven” initiatives. When the scorecard is perfect and the funding still vanishes, political feels like the only word left.
The Human Cost of Bureaucratic Indifference
When you strip $250,000 from a small transitional housing program, you don’t just lose line items. You lose human beings.
You lose the night-shift counselor who sits up with a new mom who hasn’t slept in three days. You lose the parenting coach who teaches how to hold a colicky baby at 3 a.m. You lose the staffer who drives a teen to her GED class. You lose the next 134 referrals.
And if you live anywhere near the South, you know how fragile that ecosystem already is.
In states where abortion access is being rolled back, programs like MSSH are the literal embodiment of “support for life.” These young women chose to carry pregnancies to term. The least a civilized society can do is help them survive the aftermath.
Cutting them loose isn’t just bad policy—it’s moral malpractice.
Why This Fight Belongs to the Queer Community Too
When I look at those young mothers, I see echoes of queer kids across the South… the ones who came out and got kicked out. The ones who bounced between couches, shelters, and friends’ floors because family stopped being safe.
The details differ, but the feeling is the same: isolation, shame, survival.
Many of us built our strength from that same rubble. We learned to be our own safety net when society wouldn’t catch us. We built chosen family when blood turned its back.
That’s why this matters to us. Because our movement, the LGBTQ+ movement, is about more than rainbow flags and Pride floats. It’s about liberation, compassion, and standing in the breach for anyone who’s been told they don’t deserve care.
If we only defend our own, we’ve missed the point.
When pregnant teens lose their shelter because of politics, that’s our cue to step forward… to say, we’ve been there too.
The Intersection of Struggle
Oppression doesn’t care about categories. Homelessness, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia; they travel in packs.
A queer kid thrown out for coming out and a teenage mom thrown out for being pregnant are living two sides of the same coin: shame-based rejection.
Programs like My Sister Susan’s House break that cycle. They don’t ask who’s to blame. They ask, “What do you need to survive?” That’s the same ethic that built queer community centers, AIDS-era care networks, and modern mutual aid collectives.
If we want to build a truly intersectional movement, one that preaches solidarity instead of slogan-shopping, this is it.
Standing with My Sister Susan’s House isn’t charity. It’s alignment.
The Bigger Picture: What Happens When We Stop Caring
The United States has roughly 4.2 million youth experiencing homelessness each year. Among them are an estimated 44% who identify as LGBTQ+ and a rapidly rising number of pregnant or parenting teens.
In the South, social stigma and lack of safety nets amplify that crisis. Faith-based shelters often exclude young mothers or queer youth. Government programs are chronically underfunded.
That’s why local, targeted efforts like MSSH matter so much. They fill the gap where the system fails… quietly, efficiently, compassionately.
When federal funding vanishes, these micro-safety-nets disappear first. And when they’re gone, it’s nearly impossible to rebuild them.
The Immediate Goal: $250,000 to Keep the Doors Open
Youth Focus has launched an emergency fundraising campaign titled The Future of My Sister Susan’s House. They’re asking for help from foundations, businesses, and individuals to replace the lost federal support.
$250,000 keeps the lights on, staff paid, programs running, and residents safe for another year. It buys time; time to lobby for renewed funding, build private partnerships, and protect the next wave of young mothers who’ll knock on that door.
For most of us, that number feels huge. But community math works differently:
5,000 people giving $50. 2,500 people giving $100. 500 businesses giving $500.
Any of those combinations reach the goal.
We’ve raised more for drag fundraisers and bar-rescue campaigns. We can do this.
What Rainbows In Revolt Will Do, and What You Can Do Too
Rainbows In Revolt has always been about turning compassion into motion. We fight for queer rights, yes, but we fight for human rights first.
So here’s what we’re doing:
Raising Awareness: We’ll dedicate this week’s social channels to sharing MSSH stories, stats, and donation links. Every post will link to their fundraiser.
Small-Business Challenge: LGBTQ-owned bars, salons, and boutiques; consider pledging 1 day of sales or hosting a benefit night.
Holiday Giving Push: Encourage customers, friends, and chosen family to match what they’d spend on a night out.
Visibility and Solidarity: Tag posts with #SaveMSSH and #RiseForMothers. Visibility drives dollars.
Press and Policy Pressure: Contact local representatives in North Carolina; ask why a program with a perfect federal score lost its funding.
And you, reading this right now, can do something too.
Donate directly: https://www.youthfocus.org/future-of-mssh/ Share this post, tweet it, thread it, shout it from your group chats. If you know foundations or faith groups that truly walk their talk—send them this link.
Beyond the Donation: The Cultural Shift We Need
Money keeps the doors open. But solidarity keeps the mission alive.
We have to challenge the narrative that says helping young mothers, queer youth, or homeless teens is somehow “someone else’s problem.”
It’s everyone’s problem. Because the mark of a society isn’t how it treats its most powerful, it’s how it treats its most vulnerable.
We’re living in a time where empathy itself feels like rebellion. So be rebellious. Care loudly.
To the Next Generation of Fighters
To every queer kid who ever packed a bag in the middle of the night. To every teenage mom who ever wondered if she’d make it through the week. To everyone who has ever been told “you’re on your own.”
You are not.
We see you. We’ve been you. And together, we build something better.
When safety nets break, we don’t walk away, we weave new ones.
The Hard Truth, and the Hope
We shouldn’t have to be here. We shouldn’t have to scramble to replace funding that never should’ve been cut. But here we are.
The government may have turned its back. We won’t.
My Sister Susan’s House has been a sanctuary for fifteen years. It has proven itself again and again. Now it’s our turn to prove that community isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a verb.
Let’s show that the rainbow doesn’t just rise for Pride month. It rises when humanity calls.
Donate. Share. Advocate. Let’s keep that door open—for the next scared young woman who needs it.
Quick Links
Donate to Youth Focus: The Future of My Sister Susan’s House Learn about the Maternity Housing Program Contact North Carolina Representatives
Written by Rainbows In Revolt: Because justice isn’t selective.
