Building Better Lives At the Women's Housing Coalition

The morning sun is lighting up Joann Levy's Charles Village office, and with a smile she's recounting a concert that went late the night before. During working hours, a desktop computer supplies tunes to the Baltimore native and executive director of the Women's Housing Coalition when she can only tap her foot as she does the work she loves. Later, she'll scour concert listings, noting band names she knows as well as ones she doesn't, and diving deeper into the dozens of performances she'll see around town this year.

Even if she's out with friends shaking her curly hair at a rock 'n' roll show, Joann knows she has helped hundreds of women gain access to safe places where they and their families can relax and recharge. After a long day or a long life, the Women's Housing Coalition is responsible for letting some of Baltimore's most highly stressed residents rest and grow strong.

It almost sounds like a challenge for a reality TV show that tests social workers and their mettle: Okay folks, your job is to help women. Who are homeless. And have disabilities. And kids. And many of them have been abused. But this is the real task the Women's Housing Coalition works on every day.

Nearly one hundred women and forty children are currently served by WHC and its partner organizations. Joann and her counterparts at seventeen area non-profits have convened to share best practices with the objective of targeting and maximizing their efforts and resources. Though shelter would seem to be the primary occupation of the Women's Housing Coalition, WHC teams up with service providers and support groups such as the Maryland Food Bank, Health Care for the Homeless, and Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore. These community stakeholders represent a range of options for women who aren't used to being in control. An extensive intake process means that decades-old obstacles are taken on methodically, and the partners always keep their focus on the results WHC families need: "When they come, their goal is to leave," Levy says of the women.

But just as it took many years for families to reach circumstances that lead to referral to WHC by homeless shelters, treatment centers, and schools, it takes patience to emerge from the tangle. So WHC doesn't set a time limit for progressing through its levels of secure and affordable housing. Now in her eighth year at WHC, Levy is leveraging experience and connections she acquired in over seven years of inner-city work with Columbia's Enterprise Foundation (now Enterprise Community Partners) to elevate WHC's effectiveness and improve service networks. Processes matter and so does execution, but it is important to Levy to make sure no resident of WHC housing feels pressure along her path to independence.

"This is permanent housing, which means that the ladies and the families literally could stay here forever." Still, success requires an outline. Case managers at WHC develop individualized service plans that map out routes to each woman's self-sufficiency, mobility, capacity to support her family, and the physical and emotional fortitude to hold on to all the ground she's gained through hard work.

Joann tells stories of the kinds of women who make up WHC's 90% success rate. They're dropouts who now have master's degrees and their first cars since Ronald Reagan was president, and kids who went to summer camp, got summer jobs, and now study at four-year colleges. Two of WHC's full-time employees are former residents.

"You know how in weight-loss commercials it says 'results not typical'?" she asks rhetorically. "This is a typical result for us."

Part of picturing success that is particular to each WHC case means providing a continuum of care and options. "We meet each woman where she is," Levy emphasizes. "We don't say, 'Now you're here, and this is what you're gonna do.' It's a process of working with a woman to figure out what she wants�what is her 'future perfect?'" In the end, "It's all about the goals of that particular woman or that particular family."

Those who need the services that non-profits provide want the right kind of help, and donors want to know that resources they provide are being managed wisely. In addition to the core casework that represents WHC's mandate, the organization also operates in the real estate sector, since WHC facilities are rehabilitated historic buildings in Mount Vernon and Charles Village. If Levy had her way, some of the ongoing financial support from individual donors, foundations, and corporations would be directed to create accommodations for more families, but today the physical footprint of WHC stands at four multi-family facilities and scattered sites throughout the city where the organization pays landlords on behalf of women in the program. The latest WHC house opened in 2008, before the mortgage meltdown sent Maryland's unemployment rate soaring and put thousands of at-risk families into dire straits and out of their homes.

"You can't build your way out of homelessness, but we're in a position where we can't build, and that's very frustrating because the need is so great," Levy laments. 

So the Women's Housing Coalition and its many partners are in the same boat as non-profit organizations throughout the nation: they are seen as shelter from the economic storm, but they are not exactly safe at harbor, either. At WHC, an approach that integrates partnership and patience is letting Joann Levy and her team provide as much as they can, focus on results, and plan for better times. 


Sam Hopkins is a freelance writer and publisher of Bmore Media.


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Photos by Arianne Teeple:

- Joann Levy, Executive Director, the Women's Housing Coalition, talks with Ann
- The Women's Housing Coalition in Baltimore
- The Women's Housing Coalition logo - courtesy of WHC
- Joann Levy