Olive Crest, a nonprofit that has worked to support foster children aging out of the system for 50 years, is breaking ground today in Santa Ana on its latest apartment complex project with a mission to prevent homelessness among transitional-aged youths.

The 16 apartment units, which will have two beds each and shared bath, kitchen and living spaces, are designed to foster community and encourage the residents to mingle and support each other. The two-story complex will also have wraparound services on site, such as case management, employment coaching and skills workshops.

Donald Verleur, Olive Crest CEO, said this kind of work is important to him because helping youths earlier in life can set them on a path toward a brighter future.

“I think a lot of societal ills are a result of not addressing issues early in life and stopping generational cycles of abuse,” Verleur said. “If we were involved as a society more in this prevention and care, we would really have a different society of homelessness, chemical dependency, human trafficking, incarceration, productivity, teen pregnancy, suicide. I mean, it’s amazing all the things that we can prevent if we are more proactive.”

The goal is more than providing housing. Children and families need security first and foremost, Verleur said. Most of the youths who are connected to Olive Crest are referred through Child Protective Services, but others find their way to the nonprofit from local Boy & Girls Clubs, hospitals, women’s prisons and such, he said.

“Part of our continuum is first get the stability and then wrap around the child,” Verleur said. “It’s not only Olive Crest’s goal to fix the wound, but that there is an infrastructure or support system with the child, the teen, or the family, that is lifelong.

“We’re really looking for full transformation of the child and the family so that we can stop the cycle,” he added. “That’s part of the component that sometimes our society misses.”

The multimillion dollar apartment complex will be built on unused property at Olive Crest’s headquarters in Santa Ana. Funds for the project were donated by RSI Dream Communities, the Crean Foundation, the Larry and Helen Hoag Foundation and the Oltmans Foundation. Officials with Olive Crest said other donors are expected to offer support as the project continues.

Verleur said that for Olive Crest’s 50th anniversary, leaders of the nonprofit wanted to find ways to expand the organization’s reach.

“We did a gap analysis, and we saw this huge need for teen homelessness,” Verleur said. “We’re serving about, in Southern California, 300 kids, and so we decided we need to build more apartment complexes.”

The little housing that is available typically isn’t accessible to teens with no credit score and little job experience, Verleur added.

In Orange County, 308 transitional-aged youths were homeless, according to the county’s latest point- in-time count, 162 of whom were living on the streets.

Jim Palmer, president and CEO of RSI Dream Communities, said older children face incredible challenges when they age out of the system at 18 years old.

“Olive Crest puts a tremendous amount of love and care into trying to help, maybe in a group home or foster home. But a lot of the older kids age out of the program and they sometimes get sort of lost in the process the way our government operates,” said Palmer, who has fostered nine children through Olive Crest and adopted three. “We were excited to hear that Olive Crest was willing to extend its care beyond the age of 18 and create a safe and healthy place for these young people to land.”

Ron Simon, founder of RSI Dream Communities, has funded the college tuition for more than 2,000 students who have “shown great promise but lack financial resources,” Palmer said, so when Olive Crest reached out about its initiative to expand to housing, Simon committed to construct the apartment units.

“It’s very much about creating healthy environments for people, creating floor plans that encourage these young people to be with each other and share life, develop relationships, share accountability with each other,” Palmer said. “There’s also obviously community rooms that bring people together, learning to do your own laundry, a lot of adulting kinds of things. These apartments take into account the need for that and ways to facilitate that with these young people.”

Seth Putnam, a 25-year-old phlebotomist and nursing student, said if it weren’t for Olive Crest, it is likely he would be homeless today.

“Reconnection (with family) when I turned 18 was not an option,” Putnam said. “Without Olive Crest, I would have had nowhere to go.”

Without the organization’s help, he would have had to forgo nursing school to be able to pay rent.

“I wouldn’t have had a place to live,” he said. “I wouldn’t have the job that I have right now. I’d literally just be homeless.”

Olive Crest expanding its reach through housing is a beacon of hope, Putnam said. The Santa Ana project is the first of five housing developments of its kind to be built in and out of Southern California, Olive Crest officials said.

“Olive Crest is there, and they’ll hold your hand to get you through what you need done,” Putnam said. “There’s more housing options, there’s more education, employment options. There are a lot of good things to look forward to from a new facility going up.”

Third District Supervisor Don Wagner said he is excited to see this project break ground.

“Olive Crest’s work to assist children and families facing hardship is praiseworthy,” he said, “and this apartment project will further solidify its reputation as a reliable organization to provide for and protect the most vulnerable members of our community.”