{"id":874885,"date":"2026-06-18T02:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/874885\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T02:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T02:36:14","slug":"philly-nonprofit-cuts-ribbon-on-citys-1st-reentry-housing-dedicated-to-lbgtq-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/874885\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly nonprofit cuts ribbon on city&#8217;s 1st reentry housing dedicated to LBGTQ+ women"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Philadelphia has its first reentry housing dedicated to LGBTQ+ women and gender-expansive adults.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Sappho Fulton cut the ribbon Wednesday on a refurbished rowhouse in West Philadelphia that will provide housing for up to eight people as they reenter the community after incarceration.<\/p>\n<p>It has been a dream come true for Fulton, a lesbian ex-offender who spent nearly 20 years as an advocate doing rehabilitative work in prisons after spending 20 years incarcerated. She said supportive transitional housing saved her from returning to a life of crime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the authentic love, it was the home, it was the cleanliness,\u201d she said. \u201cI had my own room. I said, \u2018I want to give this back to someone else because this is what worked for me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fulton said she especially wanted to give back to the LGBTQ+ community. \u201cWe are the most marginalized folks,\u201d she said. \u201cWe go to these other houses and then we have to compromise our life experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The house was named \u201cAtunse,\u201d a Yoruba word meaning restoration or repair, by Fulton\u2019s nonprofit, <a href=\"https:\/\/womxnbeyondborders.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Womxn Beyond Borders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Surveys have shown housing is the number one need for people returning from prison. Assata Thomas, executive director of the city\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.phila.gov\/departments\/division-of-reentry\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Office of Reentry Partnerships<\/a>, called it a public safety issue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we\u2019re serious about creating safer neighborhoods, reducing recidivism and strengthening families, then we must be equally serious about ensuring that people returning home have access to housing, support, opportunity and belonging,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n<p>Beth McConnell, deputy executive director of policy and programs for the city\u2019s Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity Office, said there are only about 200 dedicated units, mostly for people with severe behavioral health problems. Because of that, she called Atunse a welcome development.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is part of a movement, I think, of providing more opportunities like this,\u201d she said. \u201cTo have a landlord that says, \u2018You are welcome here, we understand the challenges that you\u2019re experiencing and we\u2019re going to build programming that specifically supports you and your needs,\u2019 is really important and really useful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fulton envisions providing support and services for her future tenants, who will ideally stay for up to 12 months while finding a permanent home. Atunse still needs furniture and appliances, so she is accepting donations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) \u2014 Philadelphia has its first reentry housing dedicated to LGBTQ+ women and gender-expansive adults. Sappho&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":874886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,7065,5603,1448,2830,1311,87063,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-874885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-housing","tag-lgbtq","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-reentry","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116768786746938588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}