Actor Christian Bale launches project to build 12 homes to keep foster siblings together
Oscar-winning actor Christian Bale, who played Batman in the “Dark Knight” movie trilogy, is involved in a new project building houses and a community center as part of an initiative to protect foster siblings from being separated from one another.
The 50-year-old actor met with local officials last week in Palmdale, California, in honor of the new construction — a project he envisioned 16 years ago.
Bale, who was born in Britain, has lived most of his life in Southern California. The idea to build a community for foster siblings came to his mind when he discovered that there was a larger percentage of foster children in Los Angeles County, and many of them were being separated.
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"I was stunned and mad to learn that we have more foster kids here than anywhere else in the country. I was also kicking myself for not knowing that before. So I thought, 'Well, this is it. Let's focus on this,'" Bale told The Hollywood Reporter (THR).
"My wife and I decided that we were going to do everything we could in our power to change that."
Arranging for a community to be built for foster children was no easy feat, according to Bale.
“I had a very naive idea about kind of getting a piece of land and then, bringing kids in and the brothers and sisters living together and sort of singing songs like the Von Trapp family in ‘The Sound of Music’," Bale said.
"It's way more complex. These are people’s lives. And we need to be able to have them land on their feet when they age out. There’s so much involved in this.”
After taking a trip to Chicago and working for multiple days in meetings for children and family services, Bale said he recruited Tim McCormick, who had set up a similar program and they arranged for the organization that became known as Together California. Bale co-founded the group with UCLA Dr. Eric Esrailian.
"He said we've got to do this in California," McCormick said of Bale. "To his credit, through all sorts of challenges, COVID and everything else, he never gave up."
The men met with LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and other city officials to plan the community and related services for the foster siblings.
Together, the group has begun work on 12 homes and a community center, which will be completed in April 2025.
"With our Together California model, [the village] is something absolutely new, totally transformative, and something completely needed. Imagine the absolute pain and trauma of losing your parents or being torn from your parents, and then losing your brothers and sisters on top of that. That's no way to treat kids," Bale told THR.
"And so, we will be the hub for that. I hope that this village will be the first of many, and I hope that people, Californians, and Angelenos, know to come join us in opening our eyes to what's happening right under our noses. These are our children, and we must help our children."
Bale started his career from a young age starring in the films Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" and the Disney musical "Newsies." He won an Oscar for best supporting actor for the 2010 film "The Fighter."
Roughly 391,000 children across the United States are in foster care, according to a 2021 report by usafacts.org.
The website also states that the U.S. foster system serves more than 600,000 children annually.
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post.
