By Abigail Beck | Cronkite News
PHOENIX — Jocelyn Roe was 17 when she started working with mothers in need. She was a college student feeling unfulfilled in school and needed a job and a purpose.
She’d cradle babies while mothers took much-needed naps. She’d teach the women how to clean and practice basic hygiene. She’d help them enroll in benefits, create resumes and collect necessary documents, like birth certificates and Social Security cards.
As a teenager, she became someone they could lean on.
“I’ve been here through it all, but it’s definitely not just holding babies,” Roe said. “It’s helping them … and advocating for them at their doctor’s appointments, helping them know when to ask the right questions, identifying what they need, (how to) speak up for themselves, time management skills … like really building from the bottom up.”
Most days ended with her in tears, she said. This work had weight.
Roe, now 20, still assists with housing at the Rooted in Grace Foundation, which operates a network of “houses” that are bland on purpose. The small apartment buildings across Phoenix are for mothers facing instability due to addiction, mental health, homelessness and domestic violence, among other challenges.
The apartments are fully furnished, including in-unit washer and dryer, a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom, with a communal courtyard stocked with children’s toys and playthings. The goal is giving women a space that feels like home, instead of the sterile feel of classic rehabilitation, Roe said.
The foundation provides them and their children under 8 not just with housing, but also with resources and a path forward.
Since the program’s inception, the Rooted in Grace Foundation has developed, opened and operated five locations, supporting 73 women and their children from June 2023 to June 2025.
These rehabilitation models, where family and motherhood come first are effective, according to advocates, yet they’re rare and hard to get into.
Rooted in Grace lost a portion of its funding earlier this year after significant cuts to AmeriCorps, a federal agency that supports the nonprofit and many other local, state and national programs.
The terrain: Money, politics and the program
Now, only two of the foundation’s five original facilities remain.
The Trump administration slashed AmeriCorps funding by nearly $400 million in April. Most of the funds were reinstated after litigations and lawsuits — but not for everyone. The future is uncertain, as applications for the 2026 fiscal year haven’t been released yet.
“In the face of the ‘stop work order’ at the end of April — and not knowing about accessibility of funds long term — each program had to make some really tough decisions on if they were able to continue,” said Emily Litchfield, AmeriCorps and volunteerism director at the Arizona Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith and Family.
AmeriCorps granted the foundation over $1 million from 2023 to 2025, she said.
By the time Rooted in Grace applied for renewal, Arizona had already lost 50% of its funding for AmeriCorps, Litchfield said.
The nonprofit that started out serving a very limited number of families now serves even fewer.
“The phones never stop ringing on the intake line,” Roe said. “And once we do fill our beds, it’s just so sad to turn away.”
In most cases, families spend six to eight months in Rooted in Grace Foundation housing, but the timeline is flexible up to a year.
“They don’t ask for much — just follow the rules, do your chores, keep your houses clean. You could pretty much just live your life, but just do what you’re supposed to do and there won’t be any problems,” said Shawna, a mother in the program whose full name we can’t disclose.
At any point, staff can enter the units to check on the families. They keep a log of mothers’ and children’s progress, both psychologically and physically, as some children come in with trauma or disabilities that can halt development.
“Starting with the mom and kids in a safe place is the main thing,” Roe said. “We want them to grow and blossom.”
The program offers access to behavioral health services and pharmaceuticals that suppress addictive urges through AHCCCS, Arizona’s Medicaid and Medicare Services.
Expectations are generally more relaxed in comparison to other rehabilitation centers, meaning there aren’t as many barriers to entry, such as time between last usage or duration of homelessness.
“We are probably one of the couple programs in Arizona that allow any length of recovery (before entry into the program), whether it’s 30 days or two years,” Roe said.
Trauma: A tool and a testament
Substance use has been a cornerstone of Shawna’s life.
She was 15 when she did meth for the first time. Her mom gave it to her. Shawna’s addiction spiraled for decades, from alcoholism to heroin to “blues,” she said.
And then, four-and-a-half years ago, she quit.
Her 2-year-old son, Scott, has Down syndrome. For the pair, she said, it felt like Rooted in Grace found them, not the other way around.
“They saved us by putting a roof over our heads and also taught me how to budget my money,” Shawna said. “This program has really helped me a lot.”
She has a fingerprint clearance card for the first time and has applied for Arizona’s Department of Developmental Disabilities funds to take care of Scott.
Along with her role as housing staff, Jocelyn Roe is a peer support specialist for women like Shawna.
Her relationship with mothers in the program is a balanced dance. She’s never been a mother, used drugs or been without a home. Roe leans on their experience, and uses her own, to work with them.
“I was able to get my (certification) because of my mental health when I was younger, like being the first kid in my family with OCD and ADHD,” she said.
At the heart of this role is lived experience, emotional maturity, empathy and flexibility.
Deeana Holyoak is another peer support specialist and Shawna’s neighbor. Prior to funding cuts, she acted as an in-house staff member, where she “got paid to live” there, and support women as needed, around the clock.
Holyoak underwent an intense court dispute over the custody of her son that left her with hefty bills to pay and judgement from her family and community. In the end, she was without a job, a home or custody of her son.
“When we’ve been through stuff, it kind of changes our perception of things. But when we haven’t been through it — it’s really hard for us to relate,” she said.
After program care, there’s a middle ground that’s increasingly difficult to navigate as government resources for the most vulnerable continue to be gutted. This moment between recovery and reintroduction into society is widely unresolved.
But, the care continues — to the extent that it can.
For many at Rooted in Grace Foundation, the work circles back to the children and how to create a foundation that gives mothers ground to stand on. The care trickles down — from the program, to the mothers, to the children.
“It comes down to our future, our children,” Holyoak said.
This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.