At Hope Center for Women and Children, we offer a safe refuge for single women and mothers with children. Hope Center provides a loving, stable environment where individuals and families discover practical help and life-changing hope. We offer both short-term shelter and a free long-term (up to two years) life recovery program.
Short-term Shelter
Open since 2004, our Hope Center for Women and Children is located at 3333 E. University. We provide 30-day short-term shelter for women and children in need, with potential extensions depending on an individual or family’s needs. Our goal is to create a safe, stable and loving environment where women and children benefit from having all their essential needs met—shelter, meals, and daily essentials, including clothing, hygiene items and laundry access—while also having opportunity to participate in life skills and recovery classes. Every individual is assigned a case manager who provides practical and compassionate guidance.
While women are staying at Hope Center, we want to help them take their next steps in life, whether that’s finding employment or housing, furthering their education, and/or accessing community resources. For individuals or families who are coming from abusive or otherwise unstable backgrounds, the safe and peaceful environment of our Hope Center campus provides the security they need to focus on themselves and their family’s needs.
Long-term Life Recovery
Our long-term life recovery program at Hope Center is perfect for women who are open, teachable and willing to change. We want to help women overcome whatever challenges first led them through our doors—addiction, domestic violence, chronic poverty, homelessness, unemployment, etc. In our life recovery program, women will find practical and compassionate help from our case managers, substance abuse counselor, mentors and volunteers as they dedicate themselves to rebuilding their lives. This program lasts up to two years and includes life skills classes, job readiness training, substance abuse counseling, recovery groups, spiritual development, educational opportunities and much more.
Women in life recovery can expect to spend 40-45 hours a week attending classes and participating in work skills assignments and recovery groups. And while women receive the help and guidance they need, children benefit from counseling, “Kids Nite” activities, recreational outings, mentoring and more.
Although we don’t require our program participants to share our faith, it’s important to know that our program is faith-based and includes a number of spiritual development opportunities. We hope women come to understand their value and purpose as God’s creation throughout their time with us. We also offer aftercare programming to help women continue to enjoy their new life of sobriety, productivity and accountability.
Future Campus for Women and Children
We’re pursuing an exciting project to greatly expand our capacity to serve women and children! In 2020, we purchased property at 3800 E. Douglas in Des Moines, and with fundraising now complete, we are in the midst of a major building renovation plus construction of a new residential wing.
The new facility will allow us to serve three times as many single women and moms with kids as we can currently and will include 50 short-term beds and 50 long-term life recovery beds. Learn more about the project here.