Pittsburgh Church Provides Housing for Homeless Women May 21, 2004
Communities in Action Formerly incarcerated women in Pittsburgh, who have co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders, soon will have new places to live, thanks to the Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on April 26. A vacant three-story home will be gutted and renovated to create five apartments, with a laundry, playground, fenced yard, common areas and off-street parking. The home will be called Naomi's Place.
The church received the home from a Pittsburgh resident, and donated it to Naomi's Place, a non-profit group. The group also received $500,000 from U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, $250,000 from the city's urban renewal resources, and a $50,000 grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank.
Since 1999, Rev. Delano Roosevelt Paige and his 1,500-member congregation have helped 50 women secure housing. The church also helped the women to obtain work and educational opportunities.
"We realize that a lot of women have fallen on hard times and sometimes it's not even their fault. If someone's hurting, you don't ask whose fault it is if you have any compassion," said Paige, who has been a Baptist minister since 1972 and has led the Rodman Street Missionary Baptist Church for 20 years.
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