Our History​
In June of 2015, Healthy House, a non-profit 501(c)(3), opened a transitional home with the mission to support women in need of a safe place to live while in recovery. The founder, Pamela Coffey, wanted to share her experience of recovery, healing, and growth with vulnerable women in our community. She began by working with experienced members of the community to plan, implement, and evaluate activities for women in transition with community-based values, traditions and customs. This knowledge and collaborative effort helps to celebrate our community's diversity and cultural competence.
Healthy House offers a safe, sober, structured, and nurturing environment, case management services, supportive services, basic life-skills training, employment support, trauma and cultural education, domestic abuse prevention, and empowerment training. The organization is also unique because its staff has undergone difficult life experiences, which they successfully overcame. They grew out of poverty, abuse, and other adverse life events, and are best equipped to support women going through similar experiences.
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Healthy House is the only program offering long-term housing solution where women can stay and recover until they are fully recovered, regardless of ability to pay
After 5 years of functioning, Healthy House has provided services to over 120 women in 2021, developed an internship program, hired two interns from local universities, and hired a resident assistant member of the Healthy House family. After repeatedly turning women down due to lack of space, in 2020, the organization purchased a new home to expand its services and provide a much needed haven with a beautiful rural setting.
Healthy house has been featured in major magazines and receives support from major community members, organizations and businesses who see the value it that brings to the community.
Sober women, free women, healthy women, well-adjusted women, empowered women are the backbone of every community. Healthy House is here to do its share.
Welcome to our family!
Miss Pam, Founder, Executive Director
"I remember walking into the doors of the Gateway Treatment Center on March 26, 1996, after twenty years of active addiction. I was court-ordered to go to treatment and my daughter had become a ward of the state. On March 26, 2019, I had 23 years of being clean from all drugs... I can totally relate to the cultural, racial, economic and gender barriers that the women we serve have to address and overcome in order to become responsible productive members of our community."
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Miss Pam, Interview with KCF
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Miss Pam (center) with past Healthy House residents
Miss Pam "is very caring.
She’s got a heart as big as Kalamazoo, and she genuinely cares about each and every one of us,”
“She hurts when we hurt. She’s fantastic. God works through her very well.”
The goal of Healthy House is to ensure that women in recovery are able to build stability in their lives, reconnect with their families and communities, and achieve their personal goals by engaging in a successful recovery process.
More on addiction in women
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Addiction, homelessness, family instability, domestic neglect, and domestic abuse are issues of public health concern, gender equity concern, and overall social concern that affects us all. When women are not well, families are not well, and communities are not well.
Women in vulnerable situations are at a higher risk for physical, mental and sexual abuse. There is also a greater chance for a perpetual cross-generational history of homelessness, poverty, victimization, low education, and low economic attainment. This vulnerability is often due to unaddressed underlying issues encountered in their life span, including substance abuse, domestic violence, mental health issues, unemployment, lack of education, inability to navigate the available support system in Kalamazoo, lack of trust in larger organizations, and outright inadequate access to transitional services and support.
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Let us work together and eliminate addiction in Kalamazoo!
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