By Michele DeLuca
Whenever Teresa Martinez helps a woman find a home, or when she guides a family toward a better life, she thinks of her mother.
Martinez is director of Carolyn’s House in Niagara Falls, a unique place where women and children can come to heal and grow. And she has a clear understanding of how important it is when someone extends a hand.
“I was raised in a single-parent home, and watched my mother work different jobs and struggle with issues of childcare and tight budgets,” she said recently during an interview at the house on Sixth Street.
“I think about how tired she must have been at 2 and 3 in the morning, when she was sewing clothes for us because she couldn’t afford to buy them,” Martinez remembers.
And it is such empathy and understanding that greets the new residents of Carolyn’s House, when they first come to the door. Some are homeless, some are abused, and some are simply in crisis, but whether they understand it or not, their first few steps into the warm, roomy house, could set them on the road to a much better life.
The apartments, lovingly furnished by a small contingent of loyal volunteers, provide some women with the first secure home they may have had in a long while.
Carolyn’s House is the only one of it’s kind in the Niagara community, providing long-term housing to those in need. Women must apply for the apartments, and they must commit to participate in the programming, which includes career education, counseling and parenting classes.
There is daycare provided in colorful nurseries and a youth room for the older kids to gather, so the mothers have the space to gather their strength.
In short, mothers are ensconced in support, with hands all around to provide direction. If they engage, they cannot help but get stronger.
There is a commercial kitchen in the basement where Chef Keith Kallen provides training programs. Kallen, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, oversees job placement assistance with local businesses such as the Seneca Niagara Casino. Recently, the program began accepting students from outside the house and currently there are a handful of non-residents also involved in the training.
The four story red-brick building on Sixth Street, which has been opened for about a year-and-a-half, was conceived under the guidance of its namesake, Carolyn Van Schaik, and Kathleen Granchelli, the current CEO of YWCA Niagara.
“Carolyn was a community activist and attorney,” said Mary Brennan-Taylor, vice president of programs for the Y. “She believed deeply in revitalizing urban areas and had a special affinity for women and children.”
It was Van Schaik and Granchelli who traveled New York state, from Utica to Binghamton to Yonkers, to learn about rehabilitative residential facilities for women and developed the programs they believed were the best of the best. Van Schaik was tragically killed in a car accident before the house opened and it was named Carolyn’s House, in her honor, Brennan-Taylor explained.
Carolyn’s House has 19 apartments. It currently holds a mix of single women and women with children. The women can stay as long as they need to, according to Martinez.
“When they come here they set their own goals,” she said. “We give them access to whatever they need to overcome the challenges they are facing.”
Martinez, who took over directorship of the house in September, was once the managing editor of the Niagara Gazette. She credits her years in the newspaper business, covering all aspects of the government and social services, with helping to ready her for her new post.
For Martinez, the satisfaction of helping others is beyond professional.
“Every time I help a woman,” she said, “ I think of what it would have meant to my mother.”
Contact Michele DeLuca at 693-100, Ext. 157.
