Collaboration in East Liberty Yields Supportive Housing for Recovering Moms
By Katherine Camp

Virgie Scruggs needed a place to live after completing the six-month drug rehabilitation program at Sojourner House in East Liberty. Thanks to a creative collaboration, there was a place for her at Sojourner House MOMS, a program that provides permanent housing for low-income or homeless mothers dual-diagnosed with addiction and mental illness. MOMS stands for Motivation, Opportunities, Mentoring and Spirituality; mothers in the program live independently with their children while receiving the support they need to continue their recovery.

Gary Cirrincione is a member of the Negley Place Neighborhood Alliance, a residents' group in East Liberty that played a role in bringing Sojourner House MOMS to the neighborhood. "These two apartment buildings were nuisance properties, with absentee landlords, and drug dealing and prostitution right out in the open," he said. "It's unusual that residents would invite a social service program to their neighborhood, but we preferred a drug rehab program to an uncontrolled drug problem. Sojourner House had an excellent reputation." Neighborhood leaders met with the director of Sojourner House, and together they came up with the plan to develop the properties into permanent housing for addicted parenting women.

But the two groups could not take on the project alone. East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI) was the missing link. "We didn't have nonprofit status, or staff--we're all volunteers. We've had a long partnership with ELDI," Cirrincione said. ELDI served as the developer in the project, bought the problem buildings and managed the $3.4 million renovation of the first house, in which six apartments were completed in 2002. ELDI is also managing redevelopment of the building next door, which is part of an expansion to create 10 more units for families in the program.

With support from Sojourner House counselors and staff, Scruggs has been clean for almost three years, and she has been turning her life around after 30 years of addiction to crack cocaine. The MOMS program offers Scruggs and her family a high-quality apartment and a safe place to live, away from the people and places around which she used to get high. "You can't want anything better than this, especially if, like me, you can't work. Just look at the apartment! They have tickets for kids, they take the moms on a day out once a month--you get to do things you wouldn't do."

Sojourner House MOMS apartments in East Liberty

She credits the program with helping her become a better parent and repair her relationships with her four children. "I have bonded with my youngest child through activities that I was never interested in before, because they weren't drug-related," she said. She babysits her grandson while another daughter goes to school. She is currently disabled but eventually would like to work part-time.

Scruggs recently attended a neighborhood crime watch meeting and plans to become more involved in the East Liberty community. The way to stop crime is by working together, she says. "They cleaned up another building in the neighborhood by getting together and making phone calls. The more people you have, the stronger your voice."