KWTX News + Lovely Village
By Julie HaysPublished: Jun. 24, 2025 at 6:30 PM CDTWACO, Texas (KWTX) - A local nonprofit is celebrating a big grant by the City of Waco that will help fund a housing project for victims of sexual trauma.
Lovely Village, formerly knowns as Jesus Said Love, will soon start construction on a safe housing program for moms and children near downtown Waco and after two and a half years of hard work, the City of Waco has granted the non profit $630,000.
The original ask from founders Brett and Emily Mills was $500,000.
“The really cool thing that happened is there were more funds available,” Emily said.
“So, the city actually upped our given amount to $630,000 which really lets us do even more to the property. So, we could do like a better gate and fencing structure so that children can be safe on the property. We get to do some exterior illumination that will be really helpful for safety and just really beautify this space that’s been blighted for some long.”
Phase one of Lovely Village is a fourplex which can hold a maximum of four single moms and up to nine kids or eight single women.
The land and building which needs renovation was donated by Magnolia Foundation.
“The apartments were gifted to us. They are in proximity to our HQ. Magnolia Foundation was generous, did not need this property and they knew we were interested in a housing project for survivors of sexual exploitation, trafficking and trauma and donated it to us,” Emily said.
The goal of the village is to take in women and make it so that when a woman leaves, she is trained and ready to move on to the next phase of her journey leaving with savings to make a house or car down payment, job and leadership skills and a living wage job secured.
Emily said the gift by the City of Waco is not only needed but symbolic in many ways.
“I think what’s really cool about the city investing in Lovely Village, in particular to women who have been sexually exploited and trafficked, is that at the turn of the century for 28 years from 1889 to 1917 the city benefited from legalized prostitution. Women at the turn of the century, it was the equivalent of 11 million dollars that women in prostitution earned the city,” Emily said. “That was money that built our bridges, sidewalks, schools but none of those were accessible to the women who were confined to a plight of land that is barren now behind the Marriot Courtyard. And so, in 1917 when the federal government shut down the red light district the City of Waco actually kicked these women out and today what the city is saying through this grant is ‘welcome home.’ That’s exciting!”
Construction on Lovely Village will hopefully start this summer or early fall.
They hope to have the residences open sometime in early 2026.
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