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*  *  Survival/Life Skills For Woman ( from Personal Health to Money Management to Legal Rights to Employment Re-entry)  

Read about the Ribbon-Cutting ceremony from the News-Enterprise article..

Church hopes housing program will help homeless women become independent

By MATT CLARY

Homeless women in Hardin County have limited options when seeking assistance. Family, friends or out-of-county shelters have been the only alternative.

Sign of the Dove, a 200- member, non-denominational Christian church in Radcliff, is hoping to keep women and their children closer to home while teaching skills for an independent future.

The church recently finished refurbishing a two-bedroom apartment that will provide transitional housing for women and children.

"Our goal is really to empower women to help themselves, to become self-sufficient and productive citizens of Hardin County," said Shawndra Pickett, program director with Sign of the Dove.

The apartment, part of a 12-unit building the church purchased for $250,000, will house up to five people. Residents will stay in the apartment for 30 days to six months.

In addition to a safe place to live, the church will teach residents what it calls "survival skills for women."

This includes lessons in finance, parenting, personal health and assertiveness. The last course focuses on re-entry into the job market.

The church's housing program will serve a need in the community, said Marilyn Brown, executive director of North Hardin Hope, another Radcliff agency that provides food, rent assistance and other services to needy families in the area.

"Often when people don't have a place to stay in this area, our only option is to send them to a shelter," Brown said.

Those shelters, like the Wayside Christian Mission, Salvation Army and the Transitional Living Center, are all in Louisville.

Moving to those shelters presents transportation obstacles, pulls kids out of familiar schools and isolates the needy from family, friends and potential employment, Brown said.

Debbie Morris, executive director of Helping Hands in Elizabethtown, has faced similar frustrations.

"We have some people who are homeless, but have a job here," Morris said.

Once they're moved to shelters, jobs are lost and already at-risk citizens are put further behind, she said.

The only shelter in Hardin County is SpringHaven, formerly known as Lincoln Trail Domestic Violence Shelter.

Homeless women who don't escape abuse often fall through the cracks.

"Unfortunately, because they don't fit the criteria, they don't get the assistance," Pickett said. "Women need assistance far beyond domestic violence."

Sign of the Dove had offered transitional housing at a home in Rineyville. Distance from town made the home impractical, and it was closed in 2000. The church continued to provide referral services and financial assistance when possible.

The new apartment is located off of West Lincoln Trail Boulevard near the Radcliff City Hall where it will serve the community better, Pickett said.

Two populations make up most of Sign of the Dove's clients: divorced women who depended on their husbands for support and were left without the skills needed to support themselves, and women caught in the poverty cycle, representing a second or third generation dependent on government welfare, Pickett said.

"Nobody's taught these women how to survive," Pickett said.

The 200 families and individuals the church serves don't fit the image of homelessness associated with large urban areas.

"Eighty-five percent are just living from place to place," Pickett said.

They stay with friends or family in overcrowded, often substandard housing, Pickett said.

The new Sign of Hope program is being made available to women because that's where the greatest need is, Pickett said.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the first apartment was held last week. State Sen. Elizabeth Tori, R-Radcliff, is working with the church to find furnishings for the apartment, Pickett said.

The church is hoping to move the first residents in next week.

A second two-bedroom unit should be available in the building by Jan. 1. Eventually, the church hopes to use all 12 units at the apartment building for transitional housing, Pickett said.

The church received a $25,000 grant from the Kentucky Housing Authority. The remaining funds for the program come from church members.

"Now that we have the facility, we can help some, but not as many as we like," Pickett said.