Our story
A home, on a campus that has been here thirty years.
Why
Women came to our church asking for help. They wanted to keep their babies and stay in their community, and they could not see how. Some left Chicago to find support. Some felt they had no choice at all.
In the spring of 2022, Pastor Charles Moodie and his wife Kehinde began praying about what it would take to give those women a real option — not advice, not a pamphlet, but a door and a key.
The campus on LaSalle Street, which our church has been restoring for thirty years.
The campus
Chicago City Life Center began in the early 1990s, serving Englewood across from the Robert Taylor Homes. The church bought the former St. Anne's parish campus — renamed St. Charles Lwanga in 1971 and designated a Black Catholic church — shortly after it closed in 1990, and has been restoring it ever since. The auditorium became a church and outreach center. Other buildings became a daycare and staff housing.
One building was left: a 14,000 square foot former convent at the back of the campus. That is the Life House.
What we have done so far
We chose not to wait for the building.
In June 2026 we opened a pilot in an apartment on the campus, with our program director, a single mom herself and a trained, experienced caseworker who works with other mothers. A mother lives there now. Pregnancy Aid Illinois runs a supply store out of our building and refers mothers to us.
Everything we learn in that apartment goes into the fifteen.
A work day in the gym
Clearing out, spring 2023
What comes next
The design is finished and the work is priced. The building is ours, free of debt. We are raising the construction money now.
Somebody to Stand by Me
A short film we made about the work.
In the news
Daytime Chicago on WGN visited the campus and talked to us about what Chicago City Life Center has been building on the South Side, and where the Life House fits into it.