Christopher DacanayHOME SWEET HOME — Aim Women’s Center Executive Director Rebekah Cohen Morris stood outside the center’s Mother of Mercy home, which is anticipated to begin serving local mothers near the end of May.

STEUBENVILLE — During its 2024 gala, Aim Women’s Center set an ambitious, five-year goal: Establish a maternity home to serve mothers in the community.

It wasn’t long before someone offered an old church and parsonage for that purpose. Although not ideal, the offer had staff wondering if their goal might materialize sooner than expected, recalled Executive Director Rebekah Cohen Morris.

Later, the center received another offer — a pristine, multi-bedroom home in Steubenville for $300,000, a cost roughly equivalent to preparing a fixer-upper. The owner didn’t want to put the home on the market but heard about Aim’s need and reached out, Cohen Morris said.

Aim asked for community support to fulfill the $80,000 downpayment, and only one hour after the message went out, an anonymous donor made a $40,000 matching gift. A few weeks later, another anonymous donor gifted $150,000, prompting Aim staff to realize: “Oh, this house is going to happen,” Cohen Morris said.

Aim’s Mother of Mercy Home is now less than a month away from its opening target, slated for the end of May. Volunteer cleaners and roughly $70,000 in renovations prepped the home, which Aim staff see as a vital resource for local women and their babies.

“The fact that this community was so generous and things just kept falling into place made it very clear that we were meeting a need in the community and that the community was behind us, which was really overwhelming in the best of ways,” Cohen Morris said.

Upon taking over as Aim’s executive director in October 2023, Cohen Morris focused on revitalizing the pregnancy resource center on North Fifth Street in Steubenville. Once staffing and funding stabilized, Cohen Morris said, she charted a vision for the center that involved secure housing for struggling mothers.

She’d observed a striking need in the community — mothers who were considering abortion or questioning their pregnancy because they were homeless or trying to escape a domestic violence situation. Others were shelter residents, but their time was limited before they’d have to leave. Plus, the closest maternity homes were one or two hours away.

“I put it in our master plan, a vision for the next five years, that this is something I think this community needs,” Cohen Morris said of the maternity home idea. “I thought this is something we could work towards, but never would I have imagined that, within a year, we would be getting ready to move into the house.”

Built in 1904, the Mother of Mercy home features a wraparound porch, common spaces, a kitchen, fire pit, lots of land to garden, five bedrooms and five bathrooms. The previous owner preserved much of the structure’s historical charm, making it a “truly beautiful home,” Cohen Morris said.

“A lot of these women haven’t had their own room or haven’t lived in a house that’s just this gorgeous. I think it’s a place where women come in and experience peace and are able to finally rest and not have all of the stressors, triggers and crises in their face, so they can actually take time to think through how to transform the trajectory of their life.”

The home’s address and location are not being made public, for the residents’ safety and privacy.

Cohen Morris said the maternity home won’t be an emergency or temporary shelter. Although those services have their place, Mother of Mercy is for women looking to resolve the myriad factors that have led to their present life situation through a loving, compassionate and structured program.

“It’s not like a shelter where people can come and go. That’s not the point,” Cohen Morris said. “They’re signing up for this program saying I want to transform my life, and this pregnancy is the catalyst for realizing I need to do something different.”

The residential counseling program will allow women to enter during any stage of their pregnancy, until the baby is 1 year old. When women enter, Cohen Morris said, they’ll begin meeting with a case manager, who’ll help create personalized goals. Each plan will ensure a woman has the tools she needs to leave the program: Stable housing, transportation and employment or a financial plan, as well as healthy relationships and mothering skills.

Women will take part in a mix of mandatory and optional classes covering financial management, cooking, general parenting and pregnancy. There is no religious mandate, but women will be offered rides to whichever religious service they desire to attend.

“All the facets of what has resulted in the woman feeling like she has nowhere to go — we want to help re-establish success in each of those areas so that when she does leave the program, she’s really set up for stability and is able to parent her child in a safe and loving way.”

To be eligible for the program, women must be at least 18 years old and homeless or escaping an unstable living situation. They must be willing to accept certain boundaries, including a curfew and requirement that visits from the baby’s father be done off-site, in order to maintain a healthy home environment, Cohen Morris said.

Women must also have been sober for at least 30 days prior to entering. The vetting process will include psychological evaluations and a background check to make sure someone is right for the program, Cohen Morris said.

The program will accept four women at its onset, with one room being reserved for a staff member. Because of space constraints, a woman’s other children may not reside with them in the home. Accepting a woman and her other children is a goal, Cohen Morris said, but Aim is centering its effort on the women and their babies until capacity can be expanded.

Staff will be present at every hour of every day, Cohen Morris said. Someone will stay overnight, and two staff members will alternate during the day.

It’s imperative that volunteers from the community step up to provide women with transportation to doctor’s visits, counseling and other necessities. Volunteers will also handle the home’s landscaping during the summer and be mentors and friends to the women, providing childcare when necessary.

“It’s going to take the entire community supporting the work that we’re doing there,” Cohen Morris said. “We really want to create lasting relationships between the women and the people who volunteer at the center or the home. That sustained community involvement and social connections will allow that woman to hopefully not fall back into patterns of behavior that landed her in the crisis situation.”

Aim would also appreciate the community’s help with paying the home’s 30-year mortgage, which costs $2,024 per month.

“It would be amazing if donors and community partners can help us pay that off sooner so we can continue to expand services to women and free up those funds,” Cohen Morris said, noting that donations have already financed staffing and operational costs for a number of years.

It’s interesting that Aim is preparing to accept applications for the maternity home in the next few weeks, far sooner than staff had originally anticipated for the project, Cohen Morris said.

While Aim’s goal to offer progesterone treatment — referred to as “abortion pill reversal” — was accomplished last summer as anticipated, another goal appears out of reach for now. Becoming a local child placement agency is still a hope but is years away due to the involved process, Cohen Morris said.

“It’s interesting to make a timeline and think you’re going to do things at a certain point and that things are going to go a certain way, but sometimes God has different plans, and I always want to be receptive and open to wherever the lord is leading.”

She continued: “It’s just been so great to see the community just pour out so much generosity, time and energy to make this home a reality, and the right staff have come along. So, it’s just been very, very encouraging to know we’re not doing this alone.”