One Step at a Time: One YouthBuild Student’s Journey Toward a Brighter Future for Herself and Her Daughter

With wrap-around supports and guidance, Andrerica Rosa set herself on a path toward success.

At 22, Angie Rosa found herself in a hotel room with her newborn daughter, trying to figure out how to build a life from nothing. She had left an abusive relationship, cycled through unstable housing situations, and was battling severe depression. Her daily routine consisted of the basics: “making sure the baby ate, making sure she had her diaper changed, making sure she was clean.” Beyond caring for her daughter, she struggled to see a better future.

“I was very depressed,” Angie remembers. “I didn't really do anything. I didn't want to do anything.”

For many young women in similar situations, these circumstances can become a dead end where dreams get deferred while the immediate demands of survival take over. But Angie was ready for a new path, thanks to a sister who was already connected to a program that would change everything: YouthBuild Elizabeth, operated through the Housing Authority of the City of Elizabeth (HACE).

Through its membership in the New Jersey Opportunity Youth Coalition (NJOYC), HACE/ YouthBuild Elizabeth is part of a statewide effort to ensure young people across New Jersey have access to education, workforce training, and comprehensive support services. Opportunity Youth Network (OYN) operates as the backbone organization for NJOYC, coordinating this coalition of programs across the state to create connected pathways and shared advocacy for opportunity youth.

“My sister was coming to the program,” Angie explains. “And like I said, I didn’t have anywhere to go. So I said, let me join so I could get help with housing, but it helped me way more.”

When Angie first walked through the doors of HACE, she wasn’t looking for a career or even necessarily an education. She was looking for survival: a place to live, help with childcare, and maybe, she hoped, somewhere she could catch her breath. What she found was something she hadn’t expected: a community that helped her take the first steps toward a brighter future.

“It was a little escape for me,” she reflects. “The people who work here, you could talk to them, you could talk about anything without them judging you.”

That non-judgmental environment became the foundation for everything that followed. While many programs expect participants to figure out childcare on their own - a high barrier for many young parents - HACE understood that students need practical support outside the classroom to succeed. The first and most crucial support for Angie was childcare. They helped her access daycare, making it possible for her to focus on her own development. Once she had a safe place for her daughter, working toward her goals was much easier.

“How I did it is the daycare. The daycare helps me a lot,” she said simply. Once that was in place, reaching her goals became possible. 

But even with childcare support, Angie’s daily routine required extraordinary determination. Without reliable transportation, she walked three miles each morning to drop her daughter off at daycare, then walked another four miles to get to the program. Maurice McClain, Field Director at HACE, witnessed this daily commitment firsthand.

“She makes things happen when others make excuses,” McClain said. “She just makes it happen.”

This work ethic didn’t go unnoticed by staff, who began to rely on Angie in ways that built her confidence and leadership skills. “We can lean on her for anything,” McClain explained. “Like, anything we ask her to do, she does it. Any appointment, she makes it there.”

More importantly, Angie began advocating for herself. Many young people in crisis never have the opportunity to foster their own agency. “She advocates for herself,” McClain notes. “A lot of participants, they sit back and let things just happen. She checks in with you, makes sure that you get things done. So she stays on top of staff as well.”

Academically, Angie began making progress she had never thought possible. She had struggled with her GED in the past, particularly with social studies, which she had attempted multiple times without success. But HACE connected her with a computer-based learning system that finally clicked for her.

“When I started passing my GED tests, I was like, okay, yeah, since I’m starting this, I need to finish it,” she remembers. This was a big shift for someone who admitted that in the past, “I start stuff and I don’t finish, and I won’t. I wouldn't even care if I finished it or not. But now, I guess I’m growing as a person because I will care if I don't finish this.”

Beyond academic credentials, Angie discovered she had an aptitude for hands-on work. Through the program’s construction component, she earned her National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) certification and began learning practical skills like installing tiles, removing baseboards, and painting walls. “I am happy when I finish each little thing,” she says with pride.

The combination of academic achievement, practical skills, and comprehensive support began to transform not just Angie’s circumstances, but her sense of self. She began to feel like herself again. Not just a young mother in crisis, but a person with agency, goals, and the ability to direct her own path to success.

The transformation was also practical. With HACE’s help, Angie secured stable housing through a Section 8 voucher, completed her GED, earned industry credentials, and gained work experience through summer employment that included both clerical work and construction.

Currently, Angie is pursuing her medical assistant certification with dreams of eventually becoming a traveling nurse or surgeon. Her motivation is both personal and generational: she wants to see the world and experience life beyond what she has known, but she also wants to model something different for her daughter.

“I want her to see that I’m hardworking so she can be a hard worker,” Angie says “I want her to go to school. I want her to stay in school because I didn’t do that. Every morning I tell her, ‘You gotta go to school and Mommy’s gotta go to school.’” 

As Angie continues working toward her nursing certification and dreams of being a traveling healthcare provider, her story shows how transformation is possible when young people receive the needed supports.

Her long daily walks from childcare to program to construction site to classroom represent more than just determination. They represent the distance between crisis and opportunity, between surviving and thriving, between accepting circumstances and actively shaping the future.

When asked what advice she would give to another young mother facing similar circumstances, Angie’s response is simple but powerful: “You got this.”

And one step at a time, she’s leading the way.