Women’s Empowerment Project

Since 1992, the Women’s Empowerment Project (WEP) has organized in shelters to encourage women and build self-esteem, and to educate women and children about their rights. The project trains homeless families to become community advocates, leaders and mentors engaged in educating the public and policy makers about the realities of homelessness.

WEP provides leadership to policy initiatives to prevent homelessness, stabilize families and increase resources for affordable rental housing. WEP also conducts self-development workshops for homeless women and children throughout Chicago's shelter system.

Five years after its founding, WEP was presented as a model of how to organize homeless women at the United Nations Habitat II conference in Istanbul. Since then, the project has been copied by organizations working in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Connecticut.

For more information about WEP, please contact Dollie Brewer.