Bonnie`s Apartments | Video

Retha Colclasure | 1/1/2013

The Abused Adult Resource Center has a lot of services to help women escape domestic violence and abusive relationships. Until 2012, they lacked one way to help, providing a permanent home to those who need one.

This apartment building sits on a once-empty lot, and is now filling up.

"Most of the women who lived here, been in the emergency shelter, transitional shelter, now into permanent housing. So we`ve come full circle," said AARC Executive Director Diane Zainhofsky.

But that circle wasn`t able to be closed until about eight months ago, when Community Works in Mandan began looking for a way to help the homeless. Bonnie`s Apartments was the answer.

"These women that are in Bonnie`s Apartments will never be without shelter or food or emotional needs," Zainhofsky said.

The seven affordable efficiency apartments are available to single women with a disability who have been abused. It is a niche population that, until now, fell almost completely through the cracks and were left with few options for a place to live.

"Probably live with a relative or go back to their abuser or move out of this area to get into affordable housing," Zainhofsky said.

With the help of housing vouchers, the rent on the apartments is no more than $210 a month. That`s a huge relief to these women, who otherwise could have been on a waitlist for housing that was two to four years long.

Zainhofsky says the building has been fully paid for and hopes that it will eventually generate revenue for the AARC. Right now, three women live in the apartments. Zainhofsky hopes to fill the building in 2013.

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