WELDON HOUSE
Supportive housing for women seeking recovery who have children in their care
AWRC Housing
WELDON HOUSE
Weldon House is for women with children who are experiencing a multitude of barriers making sustained recovery unobtainable without additional support. Weldon House provides women and their children with a safe place to live while on the road to recovery. Each family has their own apartment which is fully furnished with a shared community courtyard for social hour and play, offering a support system for each of the families.
While at Weldon House, women learn essential life skills necessary to become independent. Weldon House is staffed with counselors, career counselors, case managers, and peer support specialists. In addition, Weldon House provides peer support, individual and group counseling, family counseling, parenting classes, job training, education, day care, and healthcare.
Weldon House does accept clients who receive Serious Mental Illness services. Program duration is 1-2 years.
In order to provide the intimate interactions that are essential in creating a caring, supportive base for the families to heal and grow, AWRC has no more than 19 families at a time at Weldon House. This serves to create a healthy atmosphere for women and their children.
HOW WELDON HOUSE CAME TO BE:
In 2002, AWRC (formerly NCADD) received a $100,000 from the Watson Family Trust to be used for housing for pregnant and parenting women. The funds remained in an investment/savings account until July of 2003. AWRC had a vision of what was needed for pregnant/parenting women to be able to become self-sufficient, but the previously approved housing programs did not allow for the model AWRC believed to work. In June of that year, The Arizona Department of Health Services and the state funding agency Value Options approached AWRC and requested we create just such a program. The $100,000 was then used for a down payment on a six two-bedroom unit apartment complex and some of the renovations. Since then, Weldon House has grown to 18 units through it’s lease of twelve neighboring units.