Ground Breaks for Ellie McMurry Memorial Home [PHOTOS, AUDIO]

"Because no child chooses to be homeless",  such is the sentiment behind a groundbreaking at Seton House Monday.

The Ellie McMurry Memorial Home will be a new eight-plex providing housing for homeless single parent families in poverty.

Listen here,

"Ellie McMurry loved children.  She also grew up in this part of Casper and her family has been very generous and instrumental in a lot of our operations since we began in 1989"

Seton House Executive Director, Pam Kozola, says construction on the new eight-plex starts right away.  She says the new addition will likely serve 30 to 40 families a year and over 100 children.

She says its a much need expansion,  "We started out with three housing units in 1989 and we've gone through several expansions to where we have 23 housing units now, however our waiting list of homeless families who need housing varies from 30 to 50 every month."

Seton house offers a self-sufficiency program, Kozola says, and families can stay up to two years as long as they're making progress and participate in the program.

"We have a variety of self-sufficiency programs for the parents including self-esteem building and GED preparation. Education is a priority here."

Neil McMurry and family are providing the funds for the new building and Kozola says a generous donation from Don Galles enabled them to purchase the property.

"With that purchase, we also purchased the old Hillcrest building across the street and with city of Casper One-Cent Funds we'll renovate that into our new family learning center."

Kozola says the new eight-plex should be completed by the end of the year and will have seven two-bedroom units making it easier to serve larger families.