Photo by LYNDON ZAITZ of Keizertimes
Women and their children in need will be better served at Simonka Place when a renovation project is completed in 2025.
The renovation is made possible by a $1.4 million grant by Marion County.
Simonka Place is the women’s ministry arm of Salem’s Union Gospel Mission. The facility moved to Keizer in 2002, when the mission bought the River Road building from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
The process of obtaining the grant from the county took about one year.
Dan Clem, executive director of Union Gospel Mission, said the county wanted to find solu- tions for the increasing amount of homelessness and hopelessness.
“The county commissioners have always been very connected,” said Clem.
The commissioners informed Union Gospel Mission executive director Dan Clem of one-time funds available from a special federal allocation.
The HOME-ARPA program provides funding to HOME par- ticipants to reduce homelessness and increase housing stability.
The money will pay to remodel the interior space to enable Simonka Place to meet the needs of an increasing population of women with children and serve women experiencing a mental health crisis who need their own space for initial recovery.
Updated residency rooms will accommodate larger families of up to eight, with each room having its own bathroom. Additional features will be added to the facility to address some of the physical challenges of older women, including handrails, modifications to better accommodate mobility devices, and ramps in place of stairs.
“We’re seeing an increasing number of ladies with kids, an increasing number of ladies who are senior, but (with) an increasing amount of needs for mental health right at the front door,” said Clem.
“We hope to provide more opportunities for women with children. That really is the big focus,” said Kathy Smith, director of Women’s Ministries.
The renovation and expansion will allow Simonka Place to serve up to 97 women and children, up from the current 83.
The demand at Simonka Place is much greater than what it could provide.
“We want to be able to say yes to more families, and a family is defined as a woman with kids,” said Smith.
The renovation project will provide more counseling space, a parenting lab and room for a child development specialist.
For both Clem and Smith it is key to create a facility that feels like home for the women and children they serve.
“They’ve got to have a place to feel like they’re at home,” Clem said. “You know, when you’re in a room or you’re in a hallway and we have a nice play area room for them. It’s just not enough.”
He added that the facility did not have a dedicated family day room. In October 2023 grant fund- ing was used to take a wall out of between two rooms to create more space for children to go iwith their moms to play.
With the increase of older women seeking help, Simonka Place will create rooms that are specifically designed to serve them with whatever medical equipment they might need.
“Right now, if someone with CPAP needs comes in, we have to make arrangements to be able to have that CPAP in the room by their bed,” Clem said. “Planning for those medical needs, it would serve them better. And so that’s what we hope to do.”
There are bathrooms in every room, but they do not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“If a woman is in a wheelchair and she gets up in the middle of the night and has to go to the restroom, she has to get up, leave the room, and go to a bathroom that her wheelchair will fit into,” explained Smith.
The renovation will take up to seven months. Planned future phases will include transitional living for women. This would provide them the next step in housing after completing their treatment and while they seek permanent housing.
“We provide transitional living apartments, communal living apartment situations for men. And we know we need to do that for the ladies, too,” Clem said.
Smith said the organization keeps track of women after they leave Simonka to evaluate what’s working.
If after a year a woman has maintained her housing, is employed, or otherwise manag- ing her income and is connected to the community, she’s considered a success
The daily lives of Simonka Place residents will improve with the renovation.
“We’ll be providing them with a healthier place to live. The building’s clean; we do take care of it. But it is an aging building. And, along with that come those issues of living in an aging building,” said Kathy Smith.
“You can’t read in your bed at night because you’ve got fluo- rescent lights and it lights up the whole room,” Clem added.
“I’m not trying to turn it into a luxury hotel,” he said.
“We want this to be home and they want to call it home.”
In the past 11 months, 191 women and 229 children have found new housing outside Simonka Place.
“That’s 191 lives in one year that have found permanent hous- ing,” said County Commissioner Kevin Cameron. “I think that’s the critical thing.”
Contact Publisher Lyndon Zaitz:
[email protected] or 503-390-1051
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