Maggie's Place

What is Maggie's Place?

Mission Statement

Maggie's Place is a community that provides houses of hospitality for expectant women who wish to achieve their goals in a dignified and welcoming atmosphere. Following Catholic social teaching, we recognize that we are responsible to and for one another. We challenge one another to strive toward personal growth, to welcome the gifts of every person that enters our door, and to promote positive social change. In this way, we celebrate and provide for the next generation.

Mission

Maggie's Place is a community of homes that provide hospitality for pregnant women who are alone or on the streets. We have a two-fold strategy in assisting mothers to grow. First, Maggie's Place provides for the immediate physical and emotional needs of our guests including shelter, food, clothing, and a supportive community. As such, we are a family and a community! In addition, Maggie's Place connects the mothers to the appropriate agencies and resources including prenatal care, health insurance, low-cost housing, and education programs. In doing so, we are supporting the mother in both her short-term and long-term goals!

Criteria

Women can join the Maggie's Place community at any point in their pregnancy and stay until the child is six months old. Our guests are over eighteen years of age and of various racial/ethnic backgrounds. Often in difficult and complicated situations, the backgrounds of the mothers might include previous drug use, rape, abusive relationships, poor understanding of self-worth, no employment experience, limited education, bad relationships with family members, poor support networks, or mental illness. Women that are parenting or placing their child with an adoptive family are welcome. We are not able to assist women with other dependent children in their care and women in the midst of recovery from addictions or in physical danger are more appropriately served by other community agencies.

Resources Provided

To assist women in overcoming their obstacles and meeting their goals, Maggie's Place provides the following resources:

• A nurturing and stable home environment and nutritious food
• Maternity and infant supplies
• Weekly, one-on-one therapeutic counseling and bi-weekly group counseling, Women of Worth
• Bus passes and assistance with transportation
• Informal mentoring from other new mothers
• Support, encouragement, and accountability by full-time, live-in staff
• A savings program in which women must save 70% of any income they receive while living at Maggie's Place.
• Life skills courses on topics such as childbirth, healthy nutrition, budgeting, communication, and child rearing.
• Referrals to community agencies/programs including Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous, parenting classes, adoption counseling, job training, and low-cost housing.
• Access to education programs including high school equivalency, community colleges, and vocational training through referrals and a scholarship program.
• Knowledge of the state programs including health insurance, day care subsidies, food stamps, child support, and cash assistance.
• Informal modeling of healthy family life including resolving conflict, facilitating decisions for the common good, upholding expectations and consequences as needed, and celebrating goals achieved.
• Four-units of transitional housing in an adjunct apartment complex. To be eligible for the apartments, moms must be able to make a $200 payment per month, which is deposited into their savings. To encourage greater independence, moms in the apartments have different expectations from Maggie's Place and they are responsible for a portion of utility costs and food expenses.

Goals for the Mothers

The Model: A Unique Approach

In the Maggie's Place homes, we live a community life - moms and staff members sharing a home. Pregnancy, by design, is meant to be experienced in the context of family and in our own way, our homes offer a dynamic and vibrant family life. Each member of the community, regardless of their role, is changed profoundly by the experience. In this way, Maggie's Place is not only providing for the needs of the pregnant women who are in need of support but also encouraging the growth of its staff members, donors, and volunteers.

Join Our Community as a... (Click links below)

• Mom
• Staff
• Volunteer