Christian Bale Breaks Ground On Housing For Siblings In Foster Care

Christian Bale and his wife Sibi Blažić took a big step toward a passion project that’s been more than 15 years in the making to support siblings in foster care. Last week, the couple and co-founders of Together California broke ground on “village” of foster care homes that will allow siblings to stay together. Located on a 4.67-acre lot in Palmdale, about an hour north of Los Angeles, the community will comprise 12 separate family houses, each of which will house six children with an emphasis on keeping siblings together, two studio apartments to provide temporary housing for birth parents and/or transitional housing for children aging out of the system, and a 7,000 square-foot community center.

The project began in 2008, back when Bale and Blažić were new parents. Their daughter Emmeline was 3 and, as many parents do, Bale began wondering and worrying about what would happen to her if anything ever happened to him and his wife. That’s when he learned more about the Los Angeles foster care system, which works with more kids than anywhere else in the United States he told KTLA earlier this week. He was dismayed and angry to learn that, in many cases, siblings have to be split up in the system, and he knew he wanted to do something. “It was amazing to me that I didn’t know,” he told the outlet at the groundbreaking ceremony. “Why wasn’t I helping those kids?”

But the project turned out to be bigger and more complicated that Bale had initially envisioned.

“Sixteen years I didn’t think it was going to take that long,” he admitted. “I had a very naive idea about getting a piece of land and bringing kids in, brothers and sister living together and sort of singing songs like the Von Trapp family in The Sound of Music ... but then learning no, no, no, no, no it’s way more complex. These are people’s lives; we need to be able to have them land on their feet when they age out, et cetera, and there’s so much involved in this. It’s a beautiful model it’s incredible and it’s amazing that it hasn’t happened before.”

And, of course, this is just the beginning. Construction of the $22 million project is expected to be completed next year, per The Hollywood Reporter, and Bale hopes that this village can serve as proof of concept for increased investment in children moving forward.

“Imagine the absolute pain and the 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,” he 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.”