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The Lopez family: Building secure futures for foster kids

by Sheila Dolinger

Before Jorge Lopez ever built a home, he knew what it felt like to leave one behind. At six years old, he arrived in Miami from Cuba – with his family and not much else. But years later, the boy who once craved a sense of belonging would help foster kids to discover one of their own.  
  
Jorge’s early years in the United States were hard. He didn’t speak English, his family moved often, and he found himself increasingly lost in classrooms where he struggled to keep up academically. By ninth grade, he dropped out of school entirely and went to work.  
  
But he wasn’t about to give up. Eventually, he earned his GED and later graduated with highest honors from Florida International University. With a degree in finance and business, he began his career in banking and then moved into real estate development. During this time, he also married and started a family, raising his children in the Christian faith his parents had instilled in him.   
  
In 1993, Jorge founded The Cornerstone Groupopens in a new tab, a builder and manager of affordable housing developments in South Florida. In 2010, his sons, Pablo and Jorge Luis, joined the team. Together with their partners, they’ve worked to grow the business into one of South Florida’s leading affordable housing developers.  

A burden without a blueprint

In 2021, after almost 30 years of developing apartment homes, Jorge began to reflect on all the people he’d helped by providing affordable housing, and one group of people in particular began to weigh heavily on his heart: young adults aging out of the foster care system. 
  
The former foster kids who lived in one of Jorge’s communities had a safe place to live, but too often, they struggled to stay there.  
  
“They didn’t know how to live independently,” Jorge says. “They made wrong choices with friends, drugs, and everything else that happens. And inevitably, they got evicted.”   
  
He couldn’t shake the thought of these former foster kids struggling to make it in a world they were ill-prepared for, and he knew they deserved more.  
  
“These are kids that didn’t know any better,” he says. “I thought, ‘There has to be a way to help these kids thrive.’”   
  
Jorge knew and understood housing, but housing alone wasn’t enough to help these kids succeed. If he was going to help in a lasting way, he also needed to understand the system they’d grown up in and the unique challenges they faced. For years, the burden stayed with him. Then God introduced him to a community that had been preparing for this moment all along.  

An ecosystem years in the making

Long before they met the Lopez family, the NCF South Florida, Miami team, along with a group of generous givers, had made foster care one of their primary cause concerns.   
  
They became aware that their city had one of the worst foster care systems in the nation. Children aging out of the system frequently faced homelessness, human trafficking, incarceration, and devastating instability.  
  
Determined to change all that, they launched an initiative called Explore Foster Miamiopens in a new tab, bringing  churches, nonprofit leaders, foster care organizations, and generous families together around an audacious shared vision: to see no child left in foster care.   
  
Rather than working independently, these organizations began building an ecosystem of care, each contributing their unique expertise and resources to help vulnerable children thrive. When the Lopezes were introduced to the NCF South Florida, Miami team, everything changed. The community was able to educate them about older foster kids’ unique challenges, and the Lopezes were able to immediately assist in one of the biggest hurdles: housing.  

Building more than homes

Their first step was a collaboration with a woman named Fritzie Saintoiryopens in a new tab, who leads Genesis Hopeful Haven.opens in a new tab Fritzie’s ministry prepares youth to successfully transition from the foster care system to purpose-driven adulthood. The Lopez family purchased and donated a home for Genesis Hopeful Haven, where Fritzie could care for girls aging out of foster care.  
  
Much more than just a roof overhead, the home offers young women the stability and support they need to build a different future through mentoring, Christian counseling, life-skills training, job support, financial coaching, and a community of people who believe in them.

Once this home was up and running, the Lopez family was excited to donate 11 more homes valued at more than $500,000 each and 13 apartments to other foster care ministries. They’ve provided homes throughout Miami – serving young men, young women, sibling groups, and young mothers with children.  
 
They partner with faith-based providers to offer the spiritual encouragement and mentoring these young adults need. Within each home, Bible studies are offered through church partners like Vous Churchopens in a new tab, Crossbridge Churchopens in a new tab, and others.   
  
“I don’t think there’s any better way to guide kids aging out of the foster care system than to introduce them to Christ,” Jorge says. “These are kids who’ve been abandoned by their families, separated from their siblings, and experienced terrible trauma. The one thing they need most is unconditional love. That’s why we surround them with the love of Jesus.”

Room to heal

They measure their impact one life at a time. One young man arrived at the Saints House Boys Homeopens in a new tab carrying so much trauma he could barely speak. He couldn’t sleep because of recurring nightmares. But after months of counseling and consistent care, healing began.  
  
“He did the first 10 counseling sessions and asked for more. Now he’s fully thriving,” says Shavon Saint Preux, Founder and Director of Propelling into Triumphopens in a new tab, the ministry that runs Saints House. 

Another young man saved $8,000 while living in one of the homes, enough money to purchase his first car. He told the staff, “No one knew my name before I lived here. But now I finally feel like I belong.”  

Structured to give more

To help fund their mission, the Lopez family has created a Supporting Organizationopens in a new tab through NCF that serves as an effective charitable vehicle for their giving. And, with NCF’s help, they’ve been able to give more strategically through both income-producing real estate and publicly traded stocks.  
  
“NCF helps maximize the amount that a family can give,” Jorge says. “It’s really an amazing vehicle that helps us do what we do.”

A model home for other cities

The Lopezes aren’t just working in Miami. They’ve joined Christian singer and worship leader Chris Tomlin and his wife, Lauren, to end the child welfare crisis in America through the Tomlins’ nonprofit, For Others.opens in a new tab

“I’m so grateful for Jorge and the way he’s allowed his own story to shape how he cares for vulnerable kids,” Chris says. “He’s a wonderful example of what it means to live for others.”  

The Lopez family has big plans to keep growing their ministry. Pablo is leading much of the expansion effort, carefully searching for homes that feel warm, stable, and dignified. “It needs to feel like a home, a place where people can grow,” he says. 
 
Many other NCF families have also joined the Lopezes in meeting the needs of the children and young adults in these homes, and NCF South Florida, Miami continues to play a major role in convening these givers.  
  
“It’s unacceptable for a child to age out of foster care and not know where they’re going tomorrow,” Pablo says. He hopes other cities will replicate what’s happening in South Florida and that more generous families will step up to address the foster care crisis in their own communities.   

For Jorge, this mission is deeply personal. As a child who once had to find his footing in an unfamiliar, unforgiving world, he understands the difference it makes to be welcomed, known, and given a place to belong.

Contact your local NCF team to learn how God is moving in your community and how you can be a part of it.