Turning Point Center 

Young single mothers across the region face an uphill struggle. The Salvation Army offers these women a partner through Turning Point, a two-year transitional housing program that gives them a safe haven to learn how to live independently and prepares them for the road ahead.

Case management and counseling services help keep them on course, but intensive classes—in budgeting, parenting, and housekeeping, as well as building healthy relationships and preparing for jobs—help them move ahead. Staff members work with the mothers to help them stay in school or employed and to make decisions about their future, and the mothers build a group support system as their families move together through the program.

In a testament to the need for—and success of—the program, more than three times as many mothers apply as the 26 units at Turning Point can hold. Those who graduate credit the life-skills training above all with preparing them for independent living.