Save the moms and they will save their babies
Working at a Manhattan homeless shelter in the mid-80’s, Chris Bell saw an unmet need for pregnant homeless moms. Generally, shelters couldn’t provide for them for more than a few days, he recalled.
Bell turned to his spiritual advisor, Father Benedict Groeschel, Franciscan priest and EWTN host, and together they were inspired to create Good Counsel homes.
The first home was in a former convent in Hoboken, N.J., opening in March 1985. Good Counsel now operates four homes in the Bronx, Staten Island, Spring Valley, and northern New Jersey.
[Click here to subscribe to Pregnancy Help News!]
Forty years, more homes, and additional programming later, not a single pregnant mother has ever been turned away.
Father Groeschel was Board Chair until his death in 2014, and the namesake for the Benedict Groeschel award, granted each year to a pro-life advocate.
Good Counsel serves pregnant woman who have other children, those with drug or alcohol problems, mental illness, prior abortion trauma, and those with legal, custody, medical, or immigration problems.
Often there are overlapping crises.
“Pregnancy is the best problem these women have,” Bell said.
He cites two crucial points he wants to emphasize about Good Counsel.
“One, we accept any pregnant woman in need; and two, there is help and healing for anyone who’s been involved in abortion-that includes men and siblings.”
Fifty full-time staff members provide the homes’ comprehensive support.
“This has been our guiding principle: Save the moms, and they will save their babies,” Bell told Pregnancy Help News.
“We have seen it time and again—when a woman is given love, support, and the resources to stand on her own, she chooses life,” Bell said. “Not just life for her child, but a new life for herself. She finds the strength.”
Tweet This: Save the moms and they will save their babies
Good Counsel takes calls through a pregnancy helpline begun in 1996 and works to make arrangements when needed to get callers to the nearest pregnancy help organization that can assist them.
In the early years, Bell went around speaking at area parishes to spread the word, raise funds, and find volunteers. He and Father Groeschel would speak in Catholic venues and word of mouth through the Catholic community enabled the network to grow prior to social media.
Housing is not the only thing offered at Good Counsel. All moms are included in programs such as budgeting and vocational assistance; spirituality and chastity; health and abstinence; parenting and nutrition; and an exodus program for moms after their time at Good Counsel.
Good Counsel’s Lumina program helps post-abortive women and men find healing through confidential counseling and peer groups. Lumina (meaning light) helps a person through the dark after-effects of an abortion experience, which sometimes produces grief, depression, anxiety and other ill-effects many years later. Periodic retreats and days of recollection are offered throughout the year.
Among the fruit of Good Counsel homes are the women who have been served who come back to help other moms in need.
Bell recalls one who returned to work in the office doing data entry, another who came back as a counselor, and another who gave her testimony in talks through the area about how she’d come to Good Counsel in her mid-20’s, after 10 years of drug use.
“She said she couldn’t believe anything good could come from her body after what she’d put it through,” he said.
After staying a year and transforming her life through a 12-step program, she now shares a powerful testimony with other women trying to overcome addiction.
Over the years, an astounding 1,352 babies have been born to mothers living at Good Counsel homes. Forty-two new babies were welcomed in 2023 and 26 more in 2024.
More information is available at the Good Counsel website HERE.
