There’s a safe haven on Southeast Peace Street: a home with two cats, a sunroom and a garden with pumpkins coming in for the fall.
Inside the former duplex is a living room with rows of DVDs, two kitchens and dorms with several beds and lockers.
In a few months, the home will have more women living there than ever before.
Women at the Well Grace House, a faith-based Salem shelter, hosts eight beds for women transitioning out of homelessness or incarceration at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s only women’s prison. Soon, the shelter will expand its capacity for the first time since opening in 2013.
Grace House plans to add a third dormitory with four to five beds. City planners approved the planned expansion in August.
The roughly $500,000 expansion project is about halfway done, using money from community partners and donations, said Executive Director Anne Naccarato.
”This 11th year has been quite a growing year for us,” Naccarato said. “Four people. It’s not a huge number, but it is when you’re as small as we are.”
The shelter began over a decade with a group of West Salem women who organized a community ministry and meal program. One founder used her personal funds to buy the Southeast Peace Street location and open the women’s shelter.
The expansion will help speed up the shelter’s consistent waitlist, about 20 people long, said Naccarato. It will also add a bathroom, more laundry, another kitchen and a wheelchair accessible entrance. Additions this past year include a community closet and a garden.
Grace House is high-barrier, with requirements such as two-weeks of sobriety before moving in. It has a 92% success rate, which the shelter defines as residents moving into permanent housing with gainful employment and actualization in their personal goals.
With every spot that opens up, Grace House staff interview several candidates from the waitlist to see who will be a good fit and is ready to commit to the steps to secure housing, said Naccarato.
”People aren’t here unless they want to be here, and they’re ready to make a change for a new life,” she said.
Requirements include helping maintain the house and property, and each person makes three meals for the house a month. The shelter has four employees, including Naccarato.
They outsource most support networks, often through Bridgeway Recovery Services which provides mental health and addiction services, and there’s an optional Bible study.
Residents also go on community-building field trips, and have weekly community meetings to share their interests for new classes. A whiteboard in Naccarato’s office lists the most recent suggestions from women: finance, self-defense, makeup, skin-care and healthy eating.
“I think of us like a sorority house with a program, as opposed to a halfway house or a transitional home, because ladies come from all walks of life but when they leave they’ve already made friends,” Naccarato said.
The program lasts nine months, but women aren’t asked to leave until they secure housing. Some leave earlier, only needing a few months of stability while job searching.
Recently, a pair of residents became friends during the program and moved into a house together afterward, Naccarato said. She said housing costs, waitlists and requirements to start renting are the main barriers to moving out.
“A lot of our ladies are here because housing is incredibly ridiculous and expensive,” Naccarato said.
Naccarato, originally from Eugene, started working at Well Grace House last June. She said the previous executive director left her a goal of making more connections and finding places to grow.
Along with physical expansions, Naccarato wants to add more services and activities.
It’s the first year the house has had a garden, with new wooden beds installed with help from the Maps Community Foundation and Marion Polk Food Share. It’s been a learning process, Naccarato said. They have way too much kale this season. She wants to plant more herbs, and is planning to host a class on canning the fresh vegetables by the OSU Extension Service.
They’ve also recently added a free clothes closet open to the community. It’s filled by United Way’s Good360 program, and includes clothes for everyday wear and outfits for interviews, nail polish, face masks and more.
Along with expanding, Naccarato said she wants more women in need to know that the “tiny shelter that could” exists. Even some neighbors to the shelter hadn’t known it existed before a notice about the expansion went out, she said.
She hopes to open the additional beds next spring, which will speed up the waitlist. Once the new beds are open, Naccarato hopes to hire a second case manager if she can secure consistent funding for the position.
Before that can happen, they’ll be digging up the driveway to expand sewage capacity and replacing the sprinkler system.
”We’ve made a lot of changes this year, and the year’s not over yet,” she said.
Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.
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Abbey McDonald joined the Salem Reporter in 2022. She previously worked as the business reporter at The Astorian, where she covered labor issues, health care and social services. A University of Oregon grad, she has also reported for the Malheur Enterprise, The News-Review and Willamette Week.
