Hoste Colbe Mazzarella interviews guest Rebecca Urban, director of the Visitation House maternity home.
WBCA Podcasts
Life Matters
The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 302-5 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio@bnnmedia.org. Hello, welcome to Life Matters, where we interview guests who protect human life from conception to natural death. I'm your host, attorney Colby Mezzarella, and our guest today is Rebecca Urban. She is the executive director of Visitation House. Welcome to the show, Rebecca. Thank you so much for having me, Colby. So can you tell us, first of all, about what is Visitation House? Sure, Visitation House was started in 2005 and were a non-profit Catholic maternity home for pregnant women experiencing homelessness, and they come during the pregnancy, and they can stay with us in the house until their baby is around a year old, and they pay nothing to do that that were fully supported through individual donations, from individual donors and parishes, and we received no government funding, so that's the start. That's amazing. How long have you been doing this? So I have a long history in maternal child healthcare, but I've only been the executive director of Visitation House since April of 2000. Well that was an intense time to start. Yeah, yeah, better than probably a year or so earlier though, right? Wow. So what is it like for a woman to be homeless and pregnant, and then come into your doors? Yeah, so all of their stories are different, as you can imagine. The thing that unites them, the moms who are prospective residents who come in for interviews, they have to be at least 18 years old, and I would say the thing that unites them, the common denominator, is an unplanned pregnancy. And the second thing that unites them, the other common denominator, would be that for a variety of different reasons, depending on the particular resident, they need a safer or better living situation than what they're currently residing in, and sometimes that literally is sleeping in cars, couch surfing, sometimes it's just perhaps the grandmother lives in subsidized housing, and she might have a good relationship with her daughter, but can't take her and her baby in. So all the situation is different. So somebody is homeless for various reasons, you mentioned even a safer place, what kind of stresses you said living in your car, obviously, or being homeless at all, is unsafe. But what other factors can make their living situation unsafe? Sure, a variety of different things, just thinking through cases we've had since I've been there, sometimes we do see cases of domestic violence where the baby's father is physically aggressive and harmful, so that would be probably the most obvious example of a very unsafe situation, sometimes there's environments with drug use, alcohol abuse, things like that. The mothers who come to us, just to be clear, I mentioned that they have to be pregnant, they have to be at least 18 years of age, and they also have to be clean and sober as well, we're not set up as a medical care facility where we can deal with some of those pressing problems. And other situations raised rent, there was a mom who came in a few months ago and her building had been bought, and they were doubling her rent right in Worcester, so all sorts of different situations. Right, so there was no money and nowhere to go, all alone. Absolutely, terrifying. Now you said that they have to be 18, clean and sober, well first of all, if anyone wants to find help for someone or themselves, how would they find you? Yeah, so the easiest thing to do would be to go to our website, which is easy to remember, it's just visitationhouse.org, or you can call our number, which is on the website, or Google search, it's 508-798-8002, and anyone there will be happy to help you. 508-798-8002 or visitationhouse.org, that's great. Now, you mentioned that they couldn't be a minor under 18, and are there government programs that take care of a homeless minor? That's a very good question, I don't know the answer to that, actually off the top of my head, it's pretty rare that we get calls from young women who are under 18. In fact, I don't think that it's happened once since I've been there for the past year and a half, but Lori, our house manager, who's been with us for 10 years, she's amazing, and she handles the referral calls and setting up interviews, and she does have a list of other places in the area that she refers to. That's great, so how long has visitationhouse been opening its doors to homeless pregnant women? Yes, so visitationhouse has a very interesting history, and ties very closely in with the pro-life cause. It started, it was opened on the Feast of the Visitation, actually, in 2005, and it was based, it came out of a dream that a woman had, Ruth Picolic, who was a mother of seven children and devoted wife in the Worcester area, and she very sadly was diagnosed with cancer, and at age 41 passed away, leaving her husband and her children, but her dream was to have a maternity home as a solution to the problem of abortion, but specifically in the Worcester area. She died in 1998, so it took a few years for her friends to come together to make the dream a reality, but ever since the Feast of the Visitation, in May of 2005, we've been in the same location, and it's an old convent, so each of our residents has their own little room, very simple, with a twin bed, each room is named after a saint, and just as, you know, nuns lived very simply, there's still a little sink in each room, and a bassinet and a little dresser, and yeah, it's very cozy and wonderful, and we also inherited a chapel as well, so since it was a convent. Wow, so you're about to celebrate your 20th anniversary next year? That's right. Yes, yes, and we do have big plans, so our annual dinner is typically in April every year. This past April, we had Dr. Ray Burundi, who was a wonderful speaker, and usually hosted at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, and this coming year, so 2025, we're going to have it in May. Unfortunately, they didn't have the date of the Feast of the Visitation available, which would have been perfect, but I think we're having it the week prior, so we'll be sending out invites. Beautiful, so if there's enough room for a mother and a baby in a little room that used to be a nun's room when it was a convent, I'll tell you, the front of your building is beautiful. How are these? So what's different, though, about the life of the mother and baby there? So through the pregnancy, the mother can live there, and then after the baby's born around a year or more, but what's different about their life from being sort of like a nun there? Can you just repeat the question, what's different? What's different about the life of the woman that you are the host for from the nuns who used to live there? I mean, is there required religious attendance in the chapel? So in exchange for room and board, so the residents don't pay anything to be at Visitation House. But they agreed to participate in our life skills classes and programs, which usually consists of five one hour long classes, a week on things like breastfeeding, baby care, labor and delivery, budgeting, finance. And we do have a faith element to that as well as a Catholic organization, and the moms are expected to attend mass at the chapel twice a month. So right now our chaplain's able to offer mass for us on the second and the fourth Thursday of each month. And if that's open to the public, and it's a really good opportunity for people who are interested in Visitation House and want to really catch a glimpse of what it looks like on the inside to come to Mass at 5.30 p.m. and then we welcome you to stay for dinner after the Mass with myself, Father Roy, our chaplain, and the moms and babies of Visitation House. Oh, very nice. And what town are you in? What city? We're in Worcester. Worcester in Worcester, Massachusetts. Yes. In exchange for free room and board for maybe nine months of pregnancy almost and then twelve months of their babies first year. So depending when they arrive, most moms try to interrupt, but most moms don't come like when they first, you know, at the very first positive pregnancy test, they're typically in their second or third trimester when they come. Right. So the longest would be about 18 months total. Right. So 18 months of free room and board and they, in exchange, attend an hour a day on weekdays of life skills with a Catholic viewpoint on it and then Mass to two masses in a month. Yes. That's right. And I should mention though that the residents who come to us don't have to be Catholic, but they just have to agree to be respectful of our house rules, the moral codes in place and the Mass attendance twice. What are your house rules besides what you already said at the time? That's a good question. See if I can remember them all. So our house rules are pretty loose actually compared to a lot of other places. So there are some shelters in the area that I've heard. They don't typically take pregnant moms, but family shelters and whatnot. And they, I've been hearing that they don't allow the residents to stay during the day, like they have to be out working or, you know, just they can't be in the house all the time. Our rules are very different. We, all the moms are adults and we just ask that they have to be present for the life skills classes. Again, that's about an hour, five days a week. And they have to be back at the house for dinner, a communal dinner, four nights a week. And other than that, there's a curfew. They have to sign in by curfew, but we give, some of them have jobs during the day, but they want to go out and go for whatever they want to do as long as they sign out. So, yeah, so what's the curfew? I think it's 10 p.m. I'm usually not there that late. I think it's 10 p.m. Yeah. And what if I imagine that if they had something to do and more, they might exchange babysitting with each other? Yes, that's a great question. So some of the moms do do that, yes. And that is one of the things that makes visitation house pretty unique and different, I would say, is that you see the moms living communally, like helping each other. And I did another interview a few months prior, and Maureen Schwab, the woman who is interviewing me, asked me if I'd ever heard of these mommunes, and I said, "What is that, a mommune?" And she explained it to me just that, you know, if, let's say, two of the residents, for example, if it was clear that their baby's father's, you know, after the year they had been with us, weren't going to take an active role in the child's life or their life. Maybe it would make sense for them to become roommates and help each other with childcare, wherever they move on next. But yet, it's not the typical experience at visitation house. The moms who are coming, they might feel very alone when they arrive, but then they're surrounded by women in similar situations, and their needs are provided for, and that goes so far. Wow. What happens after they leave, do they usually stay in touch with you? Is there a sort of a follow-up? Yeah, so that's a great question. Just to be clear, we work with them very closely to make sure, and this is part of Laurie's job, who's the house manager and Jen, the program director, we're staffed 24/7. But we make sure that things are lined up for them, and that that's progressing before they move out. That might look like it's different for everybody, but it's not like, "Oh, baby's a year, oh, now we don't have a plan." There always is a plan in place, and they move on to different things, and yes, as I've been there a year and a half now, there are four residents I can think of who come back very often, and it's wonderful. And Paola was there last week, just because I think she has a job in the area, she had been with us for a long time, moved out with her baby when they got housing, and she still comes back to use the kitchen and say hello, and it's so nice to see that. We also had a mom who was pregnant with twins when she came to us, and that was a pretty amazing story. She actually had an abortion scheduled. She was even past 20 weeks, and she went to a pregnancy resource center in the area, and it was clear that she really didn't want to follow through with the abortion, and her appointment was literally scheduled and bossed in the very next day, and they asked her what the obstacle, what the big obstacle was, for her in making this decision, and she said housing, and so they immediately called visitation house, and that day we brought her in. And yeah, she's a beautiful person, and her babies are so adorable, Santiago and Sebastian, and we miss them very much, but they come back to visit, and I can think of more, too. Well, so many women think they're in such a bad situation that they feel they have no choice. Supposedly abortion is all about choice, but if you don't have enough resources, then you feel like you have no choice. That's right. Yeah, so I actually, prior to coming to visitation house, I was the executive director of the first concern, pregnancy resource center in Clinton, Massachusetts. They also have a satellite location in Mabro, and those situations were very different, even though they can be the same women who come through those doors and end up at visitation house, even though the stories are different, the jobs were very different, I would say. And in at first concern at pregnancy resource centers, one of the things that stands out that's really different is they tend to be more of a pre-decision center, right? So a lot of the women who come in are coming to take pregnancy tests or get an ultrasound and see their baby and make decisions. By the time they come on an interview to visitation house, most of them have decided that they want to keep their babies. We've had a few cases where later on the moms in a subsequent interview, because I send out newsletters and I interview moms and follow up with them, had admitted that they were still rather undecided when they came to visitation house, but those babies were born and they're delighted that they chose life. Also visitation house, since everybody's living there, I don't live there, but I'm there quite a lot. There's just such a time to get to know people and to leave a lasting impression and to really form close relationships and to watch each other develop as mothers and develop in the faith and even just skills like, "Oh wow, how am I going to, you know, pop dinner in the oven with this baby here and learning and helping each other?" It's just such a beautiful ministry, I love it. That's really is beautiful. When our current governor has a million dollar campaign against pregnancy resource centers, like first concern where you work, so can you explain when you worked at the pregnancy resource center, what were you doing for women there, and what is different from the governor's campaign of deception supposedly happening in pregnancy resource centers? Great, so I think the argument on the other side, it's nothing new, it's been going on for a long time, even when I was at first concern, so the argument from the other side is that pregnancy resource centers that like first concern and clear way clinic and some other ones in the area, your options medical is another one that they disguise themselves as clinics, but give out false information and don't offer abortions on site or at all and don't even refer abortions, so the accusation is that pregnancy resource centers are lying, they have a false front and that they have deceptive business practices where no choice is actually given or the choice for abortion is not referred to, but information is given on abortion. The interesting thing, I mean none of that is true, but does Planned Parenthood really offer many choices if a woman comes in asking for an abortion? In fact, I've heard from women that Planned Parenthood just said, "well see our website" and the website was very limited, there wasn't like here we could offer you that and help you with this and here's a phone number, it was just check the website. It's like pill or surgical procedure, like those are the choices that they're offering and we at First Concern and other pregnancy resource centers spent a lot of time listening to moms about their fears, about their concerns, about their individual situations and then really just sitting down and discussing options with them so that they can make an informed decision and some of them would choose abortion and a lot of them didn't though and then there's a portion who we just don't know because in that situation they don't always follow up and so sometimes you're left wondering and just praying. Right, well we're coming to the end of our show and I want you to tell us how, if someone in the audience wants to help, visitationhouse.org, visitationhouse.org, how can they help? There are lots of ways to help, like I said, we do rely totally on individual donations which are all tax deductible so obviously monetary donations are huge for us and there's a secure place to donate on the website or you can mail us a check directly. We don't have too many volunteer opportunities available at the moment but other ways to help would be even the mass and dinners that I mentioned on the second and the fourth Thursdays of each month. We sometimes have families or church groups come in and provide dinner for the moms after the mass so they can stay for mass and then we heat everything up and serve it and then they can join us for the meal after the moms and the babies and myself. That's a wonderful way to help and get involved and if anyone's interested in doing that they can call visitationhouse and ask for Lori. That's wonderful. I hope that our audience will think about and check out visitationhouse.org and think about ways that they could help. One last really quick question, how many women are there right now? Yes. Well, I'm on vacation right now so good question, this might not be totally accurate but we can take up to 12 moms with their babies and right last when I left there were 10. So we have two beds but that might have changed over this week. Well, I am very appreciative that you are doing such a good deed and I know that it's been very rewarding for you as well to experience that and I hope that you can get lots of help and support and we'll have to have you back again in the future and tell you how things are, tell us how things are developing at visitationhouse. Wonderful. I look forward to it, thank you. Thank you also for being on the show and thanks to our audience for listening. The preceding commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 302-5 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio@bnandmedia.org. [BLANK_AUDIO]