South Side Life House will have grand opening this weekend

The South Side Life House will have its grand opening this Saturday. The center will be the first pregnancy resource center since South Haven's closure in 2015.

Jan 12, 2024

Chicago’s South Side will have its first new pregnancy resource center in nearly a decade with the grand opening of the South Side Life House this Saturday.

Pastor Charles Moodie showing off the South Side Life House during construction

The pregnancy resource center and maternity home will have an open house January 13 at 10 a.m. at 5501 South LaSalle St. in Chicago, and organizers would love for you to be there.

We’ve mentioned the Life House in previous columns. The center came out of a vision from Pastor Charles Moodie and his wife Kehinde to help bring hope to women in Chicago.

Women came to Pastor Moodie’s church asking for help because they wanted to keep their babies and stay in the community. However, life circumstances made them feel like they had no other alternative but to leave Chicago for help or to end their pregnancies.

The Moodies paired together with the community to renovate a 14,000 square foot former convent building into dozens of apartments and programming space to house, care for and resource women and their young families.

Annual operating expenses for the center are projected to be around $500,000. Organizers are raising money to help with those expenses at the Life House’s contribution page.

Pregnancy resource centers like the Life House faced a potentially devastating new law aimed at curtailing their activities. As we reported last month, an agreement was reached to scrap the law before it took effect.

Pregnancy resource centers, also called crisis pregnancy centers, are not typically licensed medical facilities. They offer free pregnancy tests, pregnancy-related counseling and classes in parenting skills, as well as clothing, diapers and food. Some offer ultrasounds.

The centers are mostly religiously affiliated, and all make efforts to dissuade abortion-minded mothers from following through with the procedure.

The centers are often located near or even next door to abortion facilities with the goal of attracting abortion-minded women with a life-affirming alternative.

The South Side Life Center will offer a unique set of services, specifically apartments where young mothers can live for the first few years of the child’s life.

In a city where affordable housing can be difficult to locate, this resource is a huge help to expectant mothers, who might otherwise consider abortion.

Directly across the street from the Life House, the church operates a preschool for children from 6 weeks old to 5 years old.

To find a crisis pregnancy center near you, consult the national map.

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