About the Maternity Housing Coalition
The Maternity Housing Coalition exists to inspire excellence among maternity housing providers and articulate a collective voice to advance the culture of life and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We provide training and tools, facilitate exchanges of knowledge and experiences, and foster fellowship among members.
The life-affirming effort of aiding women, children, and families in and around pregnancy necessarily includes promoting and providing housing resources and extended care. Strong housing services are the result of committed individuals and organizations striving for excellence in all areas.
We value all housing efforts that seek to overcome the challenge of homelessness. We know that there are many valuable organizations and heroic individuals who give tirelessly to provide housing. For a variety of reasons, we have limited our current coalition to life-affirming maternity homes with a Christ-centered leadership and/or service model.
Connect
The MHC provides opportunities for affiliated maternity homes to connect with other maternity homes and life-affirming organizations nationwide. This includes our exclusive Maternity Housing Coalition Facebook group, networking events, as well as access to all affiliate benefits of Heartbeat International.
The MHC provides a Housing Locator Tool so your home can seamlessly be found by clients and advocates in the first-of-its-kind accuracy and speed. The Housing Locator features quick and easy filter options to search for homes by intake criteria, client needs as well as the ability to submit an initial inquiry application for residency right on the same webpage.
Learn
The MHC provides its members with access to ongoing maternity housing-specific materials and publications including monthly housing-specific webinars, relevant podcasts, and our e-newsletter, Heart & Home, with the most up-to-date information about the movement and current practices to support homes of every approach and housing model.
Grow
As a part of Heartbeat International, the MHC provides opportunities all year long for our affiliates to grow in their faith, profession, and relationships. Staff and volunteers of maternity homes are invited to attend our annual Conference with a maternity housing track as well as our summer Pregnancy Help Institute, a small group learning environment for in-depth training. Additionally, our housing affiliates have access to a monthly cost-free consultation with a housing specialist to review any topic of choice related to maternity housing.
Starting a maternity home? Click here for tips to get started!
Our Beginnings
Over the past few years, leaders of maternity homes have been strategizing how to best unify maternity homes across the country, to speak collectively, support fledging homes, learn from one another, and help every maternity home to be more successful in facilitating the transformation we hope to see in the lives of the women we serve.
The results of this ongoing discussion were the formulation of the Maternity Housing Coalition (MHC), which is now reaching out to more than 450 U.S. maternity homes to provide support and resources for the unique work of providing housing to homeless pregnant women. Heartbeat International has been a great partner every step of the way. With its extensive history of supporting life-affirming organizations, Heartbeat has given the newly created MHC a home.
In partnering with Heartbeat, the MHC is tapping into a wealth of resources, including Heartbeat’s Annual Conference, the ability to host webinars through the Heartbeat Academy, and the opportunity to have more maternity homes take advantage of Heartbeat’s existing resources, such as the Sexual Integrity™ Program, The LOVE Approach™, and Healing the Effects of Abortion-Related Trauma (H.E.A.R.T Manual™).
Heartbeat unites Christ-centered ministries from across denominational dividing lines and has a deep cultural sensitivity shown by its 2,800 affiliates from across the country and around the globe.
The Coalition is blessed to have such a loving place to call home!
Maternity homes are a key response to the questions: “What about that child?” “What about that mother?” “What are you doing to help them?”
Housing ministries provide the pregnancy help movement with a valuable response to these concerns.
By their nature, maternity homes meet a wide variety of needs, providing genuine choice and practical aid to mothers and mothers-to-be. Some of these precious women need help meeting immediate needs such as homelessness, while others need help formulating a long-term plan for success.
Aren’t we blessed to be smack dab in the middle of this wonderfully challenging and wonderfully beautiful work?!
