PAT CROSSLEY/Sun-Gazette Pastor C. Angelique Labadie-Cihanowyz shows off one of the bedrooms at Sojourner Truth’s House of Hope. The house will act as a safe haven for homeless women accepted into a program to help them learn and strengthen life skills in a bid for self-sustainability.

Sojourner Truth’s House of Hope has begun accepting its first residents, the culmination of three years of planning, remodeling the facilities and prayer.

The house,which is located next to Sojourner Truth Ministries, can house up to 12 people, but according to Pastor C. Angelique Labadie-Cihanowyz, executive director, initially three women will be accepted into the program.

“We’re going easy, so we will not take more than three initially and in the second phase we’ll bring in more. We’re new at this. So, we just really want cohesiveness and we don’t want the new residents, especially, to feel like they’re in with more people than absolutely necessary,” she said.

The first residents will be what Labadie-Cihanowyz called “really low risk,” coming from referrals from the clergy or local shelters. Their experience of being homeless might be a new one, she said.

Before being accepted into the program, the potential residents will be assessed.

“We have a mental health professional who is volunteering their services. We have a case manager. We have mentors who have already committed to a full year, so that even if they (the residents) finish the program in six months, they still have a mentor when they go, so they bring their safety net with them,” she said.

“We’ve identified literally dozens of life skills, with goals and objectives for every single one. They will choose what they want to work on first. It’s self-directed. It’s not behavior modification. It’s working toward sustainability. Everything is undergirded by faith,” she added.

Devotions are a daily requirement for those in the program as well as weekly church attendance, either in-person or virtually.

“Just as long as they’re getting fed and connected,” she stressed.

“We’ve connected with several pastors within walking distance and I can say I feel really good about if we had the opportunity to hand someone off because they know our heart for these women and they are already aware of how difficult it might be for someone to go into a church, to feel like everybody sees them,” she shared.

Another facet of the program involves cooking demonstrations.

“We’ve got people who are volunteering to lead demonstrations in ethnic cooking or whatever — homey kind of stuff, pot roast, one-pot meals, stuff like that. Just the cooking component includes math, meal planning, planning ahead for grocery lists, budgeting — that’s going to be factored in — the actual skill of cooking, conflict resolution, teamwork, cleaning, basic personal hygiene. All of those different things are covered in just the cooking part,” she said

“Every single thing that we’re doing there’s multifacets to why and we’re going to be sharing the why all the time so that they know that nothing is arbitrary, everything has been looked into and here’s why we’re doing what we’re doing and we want this resolved. In order for that to be resolved, here’s what needs to happen,” she said.

The length of time a resident stays in the program is around six months or longer.

Another requirement is that participants meet with a budget coach weekly.

Labadie-Cihanowyz, said although it is not required that they have a job, ideally residents would have some type of employment, such as a low-level job just so they can be employed or if they can enroll in some type of training program.

“They’ll feel more fulfilled and they’ll have more opportunities to move up,” she said. “We’d rather encourage them to go for better training and that’s not going to happen in a couple of months,” she added.

A healing garden, designed by a Lycoming County Master Gardener, has been added at the back of the house and someone else donated the fencing which encloses the garden and the property.

UPMC, along with other churches and groups, is sponsoring the garden. The garden incorporates all the five senses and gives each resident her own space to extend the living area from the house.

“If you think about it, with that many women in a house, it can feel crowded…so, we’ve got exercise equipment in the basement and we’re finishing the attic to be a rec room and then the healing garden,” she said.

To celebrate the garden, Labadie-Cihanowyz said they are planning a “garden party” for everyone who helped with that project. “We’re really looking forward to that. I know that I’m a thankful person, but we just want to gush our thanks to them,” she said. “The way the community has come together, it has been amazing. It’s so God,” she added.