Pensacola nonprofit planning tiny home village to help women recover from abuse, addiction

Misfits Moonshot Mission is holding a golf tournament to raise funds to provide safe living conditions for women with difficult pasts.

The Misfits Mulligan Charity Golf Event will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 17 at Marcus Pointe Golf Club at 2500 Oak Pointe Drive.

Founder Morgan McCoy wants to create a tiny home village where women can get a fresh start and members of the community can show their support.

"The girls that live in the village, it's our redemption initiative to get them redeemed in their own life and show them their worth," McCoy said. "And all of us have been through trials and tribulations and so many business owners have overcome a lot and when you get to a certain point in life (you say), 'It's time for me to give back.'"

Misfits Moonshot Mission, founded in 2021, is an outreach for women who have struggled through sex trafficking, drug addiction, abusive relationships or homelessness. Moonshot partners with other organizations to provide knowledge and resources to help women build a sustainable life.

McCoy considers herself a misfit and has had to deal with her own struggles with drugs. She created Misfits Moonshot Mission to help others like her find a path forward.

The nonprofit provides monthly network meetings where nonprofits and local businesses discuss the resources they can provide and help women get training and mentoring in their respective industries.

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They also teach the women about financial literacy, domestic skills and home buying.

Misfits Moonshot Mission wants to buy property to create affordable housing by placing tiny homes in a mobile home park. Ideally, it will include a main house to have meetings and a person on site to manage the park.

Depending where the women are financially, Moonshot plans to offer a sliding scale of rent for every woman and then about an additional 30% to 40% where they will take about about half to cover inflation and the rest to put into savings accounts for the women.

Women can also choose to go into a mortgage process if they decide they want to own the tiny home. Their rent for the first year will be slightly more, and after they graduate from the program, they will go into the process of purchasing their tiny home.

Vice President Rebecca Daly Richardson said there are not enough halfway houses or safe places for women, especially compared to those available for men.

"A lot of them might be coming from a place where they were abused by men," Richardson said. "To step back and give them that independence and that freedom from not needing the man ... if we give them that freedom and that independence, it's going to make the community better as a whole."

The timeline for Moonshot buying the property is contingent on how much the group can raise from the fundraiser. The initial goal was for $150,000 to buy property, but the group wants to raise up to $500,000 to get their mission going. They held their first fundraiser in March and made about $5,000.

McCoy and Richardson said they want women to understand that even though they may have made bad decisions in the past, those decisions shouldn't define them forever.

"When you're in that type of lifestyle, you end up in abusive relationships because you don't feel good enough because you're doing drugs every day," McCoy said. "It's a really hard thing to go through and (we're) just giving them a second chance and saying look, 'We love you for where you are and we just want to help you build (a life), so let's show you the way.'"

For more information on Misfits Moonshot Mission, visit misfitsmoonshot.org or their Facebook page. To buy tickets as a golfer, team or spectator, visit their Eventbrite page.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Misfits Moonshot Mission helping Pensacola women find independence