Emily was working the early shift at the cleaners and a night shift at a convenience store, juggling rent and bills, when she became pregnant with her third child. Morning sickness overtook her, and she lost the job at the cleaners. Shortly after that, bills and debt mounted, and the single mother lost her home.
Emily made a tough choice: She sent her two infant children to live with her father in Las Vegas and applied to live in Alpha House, a Tampa nonprofit that provides housing and parenting-and-life skills for homeless pregnant women.
Emily (Alpha House officials asked that her last name not be used) is 21. That's young, but still older than many of the dozen-or-so teen mothers in residence with her during her pregnancy.
"They all called me Mama Em," she said. "They all wanted me to teach them how to cook."
Since 1978, Alpha House has been taking in young, pregnant women and sheltering them as they gave birth, part of its mission to ensure the children are born healthy and that their mothers can break the poverty and abuse cycle in which many are caught. From a cluster of buildings and homes in South Tampa, the nonprofit helps about 130 women a year. It has a 23-bed maternity home and transition housing for 16 mothers who have given birth. The mothers cook their own meals, take a variety of improvement classes and have to either work or go to school.
The results are good, according to director of development Cathi Hardesty: 96 percent go to safe, non-abusive homes once they have completed their post-birth training, and more than 90 percent of the single mothers remain off government welfare rolls for the two years that Alpha House tracks them after they leave.
Emily gave birth to a son, Jessie, last month and is already making plans to take a year of training as an electrician at Erwin Tech so she can join her union ironworker father in construction in Las Vegas. "And make," she added, "lots of money."
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This article appears in Dec 5-11, 2007.