HomeAid, Builder Captain Ace Carpentry, Inc., and several generous trade partners completed a $20,000 renovation of the upstairs of the ACTS Women’s Empowerment Center in December 2018. The renovation aimed to reconfigure the 1,800 square foot space from six bedrooms into three living suites, each of them outfitted with new interior paint, flooring, and their own bathroom. The three suites – a one-room studio, a two-room apartment, and a three-room apartment — vary in size to allow ACTS to accommodate families of different sizes. Three chronically homeless women and their children will live in the suites while the women are enrolled in ACTS’ “Empowering Women in Transition” residential program.

This reinvigoration of the space was critical in allowing ACTS to shift from a transitional living program to a permanent supportive housing model. The original configuration of the house provided one room per woman or per family, where, under their transitional living program, women only stayed for up to six months. Their new permanent supportive housing model will allow women to stay for a longer period of time, with the objective of getting them prepared to live on their own within two years. ACTS CEO Steven Liga shared his excitement over the project, saying, “It’s the first time we’re able to follow this model, and we’re really excited—it ties in so nicely with the previous HomeAid project that converted our basement into classrooms and office space, as it allows our residents to really have their own space for living vs. being enrolled in our programming.”