Mary Zeien had a dream of building a place to support young women who chose life for their babies and who needed a hand up to escape poverty, homelessness, abuse or worse.

In 2010, that dream became a reality when Zeien, a licensed social worker, opened Well of Mercy in the city’s West Rogers Park neighborhood. Since then, over 300 young women and girls —  and their children — have found a safe place to call home where they are offered tools to build a better future.  They can stay for up to five years.

“If they don’t have a place to go, they are going to repeat what happened. They are going to return to the cycle of poverty and abuse,” Zeien said. “We wanted to be an answer.”

The young women, many of whom are teenagers, often are coming from abusive homes or relationships, or are homeless, either living in their cars or couch surfing. Some even are escaping sex trafficking. None have had stability or a place where they can feel safe.

“It’s all about building family and community,” Zeien said. “I feel we heal in community. Many of the women who come here haven’t had a good experience with or a sense of family, so we want to build that.”

Zeien, a parishioner of Queen of All Saints Parish, has personal experience with having a crisis pregnancy. Growing up in Detroit, in a loving family of five children, she became pregnant at 18 and put her dreams aside to have her baby and marry her high school sweetheart.

The couple had four more children before eventually divorcing. Firmly committed to life, Zeien went on to get a master’s degree in social work and pursue her dream of opening a home for single mothers in need.

Well of Mercy is housed in the former convent of St. Timothy Church, which is now closed. Zeien used all of her savings to purchase the building, which was owned by a Jewish group at the time, and open Well of Mercy.

The home can house 12 families consisting of a mother and her child in single rooms with bathrooms. If a woman has more than one child, she lives in a suite with an extra bedroom.

While at Well of Mercy, the mothers must work to obtain their GED diploma or enroll in college or a certificate course. They also work part-time.

Staff and volunteers care for the children while their mothers are at school or work. The mothers also have daily chores and take part in mandatory group sessions to help them break the cycle of poverty and abuse. They save their money and learn how to budget and support themselves and their children when they leave Well of Mercy.

Everything is focused on helping the women build the skills they need to become independent so when they leave they can stand on their own two feet and leave poverty behind, Zeien said.

“There’s a huge accountability piece here,” Zeien said.

When a woman is ready to leave Well of Mercy, the organization furnishes an apartment for them, and the women can continue to connect with the social workers.

“It’s really about building relationships and learning to trust,” she said. “Many of their stories, if you saw them on the movie screen, you wouldn’t believe that they were true, so they don’t trust anyone.”

It often takes a woman living at Well of Mercy two years to really start to trust Zeien and her staff, she said.

It only takes the kids about two weeks.

“I think our biggest effect is with the children. They have stability. They have predictability. They have people loving on them, caring for them, playing with them,” she said. “When mom is just surviving, she doesn’t have the capacity to meet their needs, or play games or laugh with them.”

Zeien, who recently went through a bout of cancer, lives at the home full-time. The organization relies on donations and grants to pay for its operations.

The name, Well of Mercy, is inspired by the story in Chapter 4 of John’s Gospel, in which Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and tells her that the Father is living water that quenches every thirst.

“Our prayer is whether you live here or work here or volunteer, that we’re all on a conversion path and that we meet the Lord and we find the way,” she said.

Well of Mercy has been a safe haven for Angel and her daughter, who have lived at the home for a year. Angel was homeless and looking for a shelter when she found Well of Mercy.

“My child’s father, he was abusive and I didn’t have nowhere to go,” Angel said.

Angel comes from a family of 17 siblings and half-siblings, and her mother did not want her at home.

Angel now is pursuing a degree in early childhood education and hopes to open a daycare someday. She also works at Misericordia as an aide.

“Since she got here, she’s so happy,” Angel said of her daughter. “She just started walking.”

Well of Mercy has been positive experience, Angel said.

“It’s stability, structure. They help you out with so much,” she said. “My baby is safe here.”

Because staff members work with the mothers to help them make plans for how they can support themselves and their family with a career, Angel now has goals for the future, she said.

“I get up every day happy knowing that my baby is safe,” she said. “I get to go to work and school. I have a roof over my baby’s head.”