For eight years, “Anne’s House” has acted as a safe place for traumatized women, but the program is ending and women are reflecting on how it impacted their lives.
The Oak Park facility, tasked with providing a nurturing environment for victims of abuse, changed Dominique Moore’s life forever.
“There’s girls out here that need people and a family like Anne’s House,” she said. “I would’ve committed suicide or I would’ve been found in a ditch.”
Moore used to be a resident at Anne’s House after living in broken foster homes and living through abuse. Now, she’s going to college and working, and she says she never would have made it without the facility.
“It’s heartbreaking that it’s closing because I have made a whole 360 within Anne’s House,” she said.
The Salvation Army, which runs the facility, said it deciding to close it to focus on other programs to help abuse victims.
“The Salvation Army is that place you go to when you don’t know where else to go,” Scott Justvig of the Salvation Army of Chicago said. “We are never going to let those clients down.”
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Residents of Anne’s House are being moved to other care facilities in Chicago, but for Moore, she hopes that someone will come up with the money to reopen the home.
“It’s worth keeping it open, changing one life is a big difference,” she said. “There has to be someone with a heart that can help.”
