On October 8, Rosie's Place hosted an open house to show off its new location, which opened in August at 10 John Eliot Square in Roxbury. Michele Chausse, director of communications of the South End-based service agency for poor and homeless women, reported that open house guests comprised "a mix of invitees, people from the neighborhood and our community partners. Some people from the Unitarian Universalist Church across the street were there." Chausse expressed pride in the airy new digs, which are now home to most of the art programming, the outreach team and some of the legal services.
"We gutted that building and refashioned it to be a bright and efficient use of office space," Chausse said. A shuttle runs twice a day between the main headquarters at 889 Harrison Avenue and the Roxbury location for guests who are involved in the art workshops or who need legal services.
The burgeoning legal program helped drive the acquisition of the new space. Rosie's Place's legal team includes a staff attorney and an Americorps volunteer attorney and is augmented with services from its community partners: Greater Boston Legal Services, which provides court representation as well as consultations; the Irish Initernational Immigrant Center and the law firm Ropes and Gray. The legal team offers legal clinics and advice on-site and provides services off-site to women in the South Bay House of Corrections. Casey Shupe, legal program manager for Rosie's Place, observed, "We've actually doubled the number of guest legal consultations in the past year."
The program's CORI clinic, which helps women keep track of their own record and improve their chances of future employment, has seen a surge in demand. "We typically see eight to ten people per clinic and in our CORI clinic, we saw over 30 people over the summer and those are only by appointment, and our goal was 60 for this year. It became obvious very quickly that it was going to be a much bigger project than expected." Shupe's own role has changed dramatically since she started as an Americorps volunteer assisting Rosie's Place guests with legal matters after her 2013 graduation from Northeastern School of Law.
"I don't do the direct legal work in the clinics, but I am very involved with them. About 70 per cent of my job is developing programs and the rest is client services," she said. "We like to keep our main clinic at the main building because we get the foot traffic there and we have kind of a unique philosophy in that anyone who wants to speak with an attorney can. A lot of times, our guests don't have a legal issue, but we still want them to have the opportunity to sit down with a lawyer and express their concerns. I think in the future we will have more people seeing a lawyer over here but we will still keep a presence in the main building," Shupe explained.
Guests of Rosie's Place can receive legal assistance with matters such as housing issues such as eviction and utility shut-offs; divorce and custody proceedings; debt and other financial crises; and immigration.
The art program occupies a bright, spacious room in the center of the downstairs level, with a large worktable and shelves crammed with supplies. While the arts program is multi-media, encompassing painting, creative writing, collage, textiles, and other media, art director Alev Danis reports that textiles and quilting as well as jewelry-making are very popular.
Danis announced proudly that two of the guests in the Rosie's Place art program have pieces in an exhibit at the Harriet Tubman House. Danis emphasized, "We want to be welcoming and upbeat. We like to offer a variety of [media] because it's going to open a door for a guest." A commanding presence in the room is a delicately embroidered ivory silk kimono that hangs on the wall. Danis explained, "It is a female wedding kimono and was donated. It is very beautiful and inspiring to our guests in so many ways: colors, textures, skill in the embroidery and sewing. It offers many opportunities as a teaching tool.'
As in the home base at 889 Harrison Avenue, artwork created by Rosie's Place guests is not confined to the art space, but displayed prominently throughout the new facility. Commenting on pieces adorning a conference-room wall, Chausse said, "We always want to put guests front and center when we can."