The first thing I notice about Citizens State Bank owner Chris Yatooma isn’t his title or his success. It’s his conviction: earnest, straightforward, seeing beyond what is, to what will be. It’s the kind of conviction you hear in someone who turned the worst day of their life into a blueprint to help others.
Chris was eleven when his father, Manuel, tragically lost his life during an incident at a neighborhood party store in metro Detroit. He’s honored that loss by channeling it into purpose, building something that helps others who’ve also known great pain. His Michigan nonprofit, The New Foster Care (TNFC), carries an audacious mission: don’t just help young people in foster care—change the system that is failing them.
“I was blissfully unaware of the plight of kids in foster care until 2016,” Chris admits. “Then I learned that one in three age out into homelessness. One in four to imprisonment.” He pauses, the numbers still landing heavy. “I thought, that can’t be right. So I went and researched it … and it was. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”
The data may be grim, but Chris’s philosophy is grounded in equal parts faith and purpose. “Everything I have, God has given me,” he says. “I believe everyone can help others. God has entrusted me with skills and resources, and I want to use them to help those who need it most.”
At first, he did what he thought a good businessperson should do: write a check. “But the more I looked, the more I realized this is a solvable problem,” he says. “We can bring programs, experience, and resources that can change these outcomes.”
So he built an organization designed like an ecosystem, not a band-aid. “We work on three fronts,” he explains. “One, with the legislature to reform the foster care system. Two, with the state to bring in programs that already work elsewhere. And three, to fill the gaps. That’s where our Bridge program comes in.”
TNFC’s Bridge program focuses on five life domains: education, employment, housing, mental & physical health, and ties to the community. Every youth is supported by a Transition Navigator, Peer Support Specialist, Education & Employment Coach, Personal Wellness Coach, and Attorney. “One team, one plan, working with the youth to change the trajectory of their life,” he says.
To make that support even more all-encompassing, Chris expanded his vision. TNFC once helped participants find housing; now it’s building it. His newest project is Hope Apartments, a remarkable $105-million development that will bring the Bridge program under one roof. “It’s the largest investment for youth aging out of foster care in the history of the country,” he tells me. The project will feature 275 apartments, and a 60,000-square-foot community center with a gym, theater, art room, community garden, learning labs, and even plans for a green roof.
There will be offices too: TNFC operations will be moving in alongside the young adults they champion and serve. “Hope Apartments will be a vibrant community,” Chris says, “not a complex.”
By their math, 3,000 units statewide would solve Michigan’s entire housing gap for youth aging out of foster care. Hope Apartments alone, stunningly, gets them almost ten percent of the way there. “In business, you learn how to solve problems," Chris notes. "In foster care, you see problems people think can’t be solved. But they can. They absolutely can.”
When I ask to meet someone who’s lived the transformation firsthand, Chris’s team connects me with Gabriella Mallory, a former participant turned social worker whose journey stands as a testament to what the program makes possible.
Gabriella was reunified with her biological family just before turning thirteen, a transition that left her unprepared and unsupported. “In my head,” she recalls, “as long as the state was involved, I’d no longer be abused or neglected. Once they left, I thought, ‘I’m about to go back to hell.’”
Years later, through The New Foster Care’s Bridge program, she discovered something she hadn’t felt in a long time: safety that didn’t depend on a case number. “For the first time, I didn’t have to survive," Gabriella explains. "I could just live. That’s what The New Foster Care gave me: space to breathe.”
When Gabriella completed her bachelor’s degree in social work at Wayne State, the organization that once supported her now wanted her on the team. “They saw something in me I was still developing in myself,” she says. She began at TNFC as a Peer Support Specialist. She’s now a Transition Navigator, helping other youth find the same footing she fought for.
“When a participant says, ‘I messed up,’ I help them rewrite that sentence,” Gabriella explains. “We’re not helpless. We’re relearning, unlearning, trying to release trauma from our bodies. We’re not numbers. We’re people.”
Chris calls stories like Gabriella’s “proof of concept.” To him, every statistic hides a life that could still change course. That’s why he brings his same calm persistence to legislative halls. “We’ve helped pass 13 laws,” he notes. “One of the biggest was redefining ‘kinship,’ so more children can stay with godparents, close family friends, mentors—caregivers who understand their unique stories and histories—instead of bouncing through stranger placements.”
Chris’s advocacy is direct and human. “I’m transparent,” he says. “I just say what I’m thinking, with respect and kindness. And when I talk to lawmakers, I tell them, ‘You get to help someone today. You get to change lives.’”
That mix of heart and structure, faith and follow-through, runs through everything Chris says in this interview. Even his definition of wealth has shifted, and he wants other business leaders to join his paradigm. “Let’s start to think about wealth not in net worth,” he says, “but in lives impacted.”
Listening to Chris, I realize his perspective isn’t theory. It’s autobiography. The boy who lost his father at eleven has built this extraordinary bridge, one that helps a profoundly disadvantaged population avoid more troubled waters.
Citizens State Bank’s president, Dan Fischer, sees Chris the same way: “The reason I’m here is because of Chris,” Dan says. “I consider him one of the finest human beings I’ve ever come across. His heart is even bigger than his checkbook.”
As the conversation wraps, I ask what Chris would say to a young person aging out of foster care. He pauses for a long moment, then says simply, “You can do anything. Anything you put your mind to.”
It doesn’t sound like advice. It sounds like belief—forged in loss, anchored in faith, and now, built into the walls of hope he’s building for others.
“Everything I have, God has given me…if you’re trusted with resources, you’re responsible for people. God has entrusted me with resources to help others.”
How to Help
The New Foster Care believes every young person leaving foster care deserves a bridge to adulthood, and a place where they can feel like they belong. Join their mission at thenewfostercare.org or call (248) 884-7645. The New Foster Care’s programs replace instability with opportunity: safe housing, coaching, education, and community connection. Whether it's through donations, volunteering, mentorship, or advocacy, your support helps provide safety, stability, and a bridge to independence