Makayla Ross-Tell, 22, is months away from graduating with a nursing degree from the University of Texas at Arlington. It’s a milestone she once thought impossible. She’s a first-generation college student studying nursing who wants to help people through health care.

She’s also a full-time, single mother to her 2-year-old daughter Cambri. “She’s my best friend,” Ross-Tell said. “I would do anything for Cambri.”

Ross-Tell is one of many single mothers who often face steep barriers in life because of the everyday burdens of unaffordable child care and work schedules that often don’t meet parents’ needs. But Ross-Tell says she owes a lot to The Gatehouse, a nonprofit that helps North Texas single moms with education, housing and employment opportunities.

In 2015, Lisa Rose and her husband, Matt, founded The Gatehouse on 61 acres in Grapevine. The organization can provide up to 96 moms and families about two years of rent-free housing in fully furnished apartments in a gated community.

About 30 families live in the community now, and the nonprofit’s leaders say they want to welcome more moms into their educational and career programs to give women a hand up.

More than 700 underemployed women, single mothers and kids have lived at The Gatehouse and participated in a career-focused program since the nonprofit’s founding. The Gatehouse operates with an annual budget of between $4.5 and $5.5 million from private funding sources.

After filling out an online application, single mothers who are at least 21 and accepted into the program must meet minimum requirements like full-time university enrollment and a 3.0 cumulative GPA.

Depending on each parent’s needs, The Gatehouse cuts down barriers that often hold women back from leading self-sustainable lives by providing on-site access to child care, transportation help, legal assistance, medical care, professional counseling, parenting classes and a monthly stipend.

Within the two years, moms in the program set personal goals, including graduating and finding full-time employment that provides enough income to support a family.

Without the support of The Gatehouse, which also helped Ross-Tell pay for a vehicle to drive to school, the single mom says a degree or job would be out of reach, limiting her future opportunities.

“I honestly don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for The Gatehouse, because they provide so many resources for me,” she said.

The education track

For the past six months, Ross-Tell has been a member at the Grapevine campus, where her daughter’s daycare is located and where the family lives in a rent-free apartment.

Ross-Tell, who grew up in Waxahachie, first heard about The Gatehouse when she was registering for classes last summer at the University of Texas at Arlington

“They had this presentation … for single mothers,” she said. “So I thought that I’d apply and see what it was all about.”

The nonprofit’s new “education track” focuses on empowering goal-oriented single moms overcoming temporary hardships to complete their associates, bachelor’s and master’s-level degree programs in in-demand career fields like health care and education.

The program expands on The Gatehouse’s work with the existing “career track,” which has served over 800 underemployed women and single mothers in building their careers.

“We know that education can create a foundation for lasting, positive change, and our education track equips women who are motivated to make a significant change in their own lives and their children’s futures,” The Gatehouse President Mary Parker said.

Current students at Parker University, Texas Woman’s University and the University of Texas at Arlington, some of The Gatehouse’s official partners, receive priority admission. However, participants in the education track can be enrolled in any accredited college or university throughout Dallas-Fort Worth.

According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a national nonprofit research firm focused on gender equity, single mothers in Texas who graduate with even an associate degree are 70% less likely to live in poverty than a high school graduate.

A family’s future

In the six months she and Cambri have lived together at The Gatehouse, Ross-Tell says she’s been able to focus on classes without worrying about the stressors of child-care arrangements.

Ross-Tell drives to a full day of classes twice a week and spends one day each week at a 12-hour clinical rotation, a hands-on requirement for nursing students who are matched with area hospitals.

Moms in the education track can stay at the Grapevine campus for up to six months after graduation, Lisa Rose said, to “get their feet on the ground, find a place to live, get settled into their job and be sure that when they’re out, they have the foundation for permanent change and self-sustainability.”

When a family enters The Gatehouse, they are placed in a support system that helps them navigate through practical issues like resolving outstanding debt and repairing credit after an eviction. Moms also build a personal empowerment plan with an on-site coach.

“So each family is surrounded by a team of experts who really coach them so they can reach their goals that they have set when they come into the program,” Rose said.

Rose said The Gatehouse’s model for empowering women through cutting down on barriers is one that cities around the country could replicate.

“This can really help the community by providing a workforce, which we need, especially in health care and teaching,” Rose said. “The education track will supply a foundation for every person who graduates, a livable wage, family sustainable wage.”

Parker said it’s the mission of the programs at The Gatehouse to instill hope in a woman’s future — a key ingredient to their lifelong success.

“There’s three elements that really contribute to success and hope,” Parker said. “You have to have goals, you have to have pathways, and then you also have to have the motivation or the agency to do it.”

Women often lack all three, and the one-on-one coaching can help bridge those gaps, Parker said.

Ross-Tell said during these last few months of school, she is doing a good job saving up money so that she and Cambri can find their own place to live near the hospital where she’ll be working on her residency.

After graduation, Ross-Tell hopes to enter into a residency focusing on labor and delivery or maternal medicine. It’s always been her dream to help others with a kind hand and soft smile.

At a glance

To qualify for The Gatehouse’s education track, a single mother in the Dallas-Fort Worth area must be at least 21 years old, complete her degree from an approved institution within two years and have children who are at least 1 year old but have not yet graduated high school.

Single moms interested in applying to become a member at The Gatehouse, or colleges interested in becoming an official school partner, can visit the nonprofit’s website at GatehouseDFW.org/education-track.