For the past few years, CityServe, a faith-based nonprofit in Bakersfield, has been working toward the launch of Elevate, a 126-unit apartment complex designed to offer comprehensive services to those in need.
On July 8, Elevate marked a major milestone with the community, celebrating Kern County’s first-of-its-kind housing project. This new initiative aims to improve the community by providing not only short-term housing solutions for foster youth but also an “elevated living experience” that will help residents transition into long-term, sustainable housing and ultimately achieve a better quality of life.
Among those whose lives will be transformed by Elevate is Ola Fitzgerald, who came to America at the age of 19. Her journey through the U.S. has been filled with hardship—escaping an abusive marriage, losing her only source of income when COVID-19 shut down her hair services and facing unimaginable struggles. But through it all, she found hope in an unexpected place.
“I end up losing all my homes,” she said. “I started to spend my life savings. It’s cold every day and every day it’s down hill… I say ‘God, what do I do? Please guide me.’”
Fitzgerald started to have body aches and pain as she walked around the towns looking for work, shelter, and a source of income. She started to ask people around her for hel,p and she eventually made it to Anaheim where she was told to go to Bakersfield.
Fitzgerald is now the first resident of Elevate, where she created a home. When asked what Elevate meant to her beyond just housing but a place to praise God and receive services as well, she was left speechless.
“I just don’t know what to say,” she said. “God put me in this place… and I just love living here now… the people, the workers are really helpful, you know, whatever I need, they’ll help us. I just have good things to say.”
Fitzgerald wishes that everyone in town knows about Elevate, and CityServe, and what they can help you with. She explained that she sees people walking in the street and she encourages them to inquire with Elevate, hoping that she can pass her luck onto others.
Elevate offers beyond a safe place to live by providing residents with new opportunities and pathways, job skill training, addiction recovery as well as the Elevate Church that will offer a community that is specifically designed to serve the residents.
“It’s all for the one. It’s all for the individual who is struggling and needs help,” said Crissy Cochran, Executive Director of Communications for CityServe.
CityServe, a faith-based non-profit, has a vision and mission to empower the local church to “spread the gospel with compassion,” said Cochran.
She explained that the local Church is also building in the neighborhood— they hope that this initiative can foster other communities to model and bring “church to the table” to help serve those in need.
“People are really starting to understand what CityServe is about,” said Cochran. “The idea of a collaborative network working through churches is still relatively new. But when you are able to look out today and see all the different organizations come together… hospitals, non-profits, and councilmen were able to see it come together.”
As Elevate begins to welcome more residents, the project represents a growing shift in how Kern County addresses homelessness and housing insecurity through a collaborative approach that combines shelter, services, and community support.
For now, Elevate marks a new chapter for residents like Fitzgerald and a step forward for how the community tackles some of its most persistent challenges.
