In Graz, Austria, the Vincentian spirit has created a protected place for women who have no secure home.

It is called Haus Rosalie, which can be translated as Rosalie House. It is part of VinziWerke, or Vincentian Works, and belongs to the wider network of Vincentian communities and services that respond to poverty, homelessness, and exclusion with practical compassion.

Haus Rosalie was founded because the existing shelters for women experiencing homelessness in Graz were permanently overcrowded. The need was clear: women in crisis required more than an emergency bed. They needed a safe space where they could rest, recover stability, protect their children when necessary, and prepare for a more secure future.

The house offers ten small living units, each with its own bathroom, for up to fifteen women, with or without children. Its guiding principle is simple and humane: as long as necessary, as short as possible. There is no rigid basic limit on the length of stay. Instead, the women who live there are supported according to their needs, so that they can eventually move on to a more stable housing solution.

This patience matters.

For women experiencing homelessness, insecurity is often shaped by many wounds at once: poverty, family breakdown, violence, mental strain, isolation, lack of affordable housing, or the exhaustion of having no safe place to return to. A person cannot rebuild life while constantly wondering where she and her children will sleep. Haus Rosalie responds by offering not only shelter, but space, privacy, time, and accompaniment.

The project also recognizes something deeply human: sometimes a woman in crisis cannot simply leave behind the few bonds that remain. For this reason, Haus Rosalie can also receive women with pets, as long as peaceful living with other residents and children is possible and the animal can be properly cared for. This small detail reveals a great deal. It shows a ministry attentive not only to formal needs, but to the emotional realities of people in crisis.

This is profoundly Vincentian. The poor are not problems to be managed. They are persons to be welcomed. A woman without a home is not defined by homelessness. She is a person with a story, a name, relationships, fears, responsibilities, and hope still alive within her.

Haus Rosalie reminds the Vincentian Family and the wider public that housing is not simply a roof. It is safety. It is rest. It is the possibility of planning tomorrow. It is the place from which a woman can begin to regain confidence, make decisions, protect her children, and imagine a future beyond survival.

In Graz, Rosalie House stands as a sign of practical love. It offers women in need a place to breathe, to be supported, and to take the next step toward stable housing and renewed dignity.

Here, hospitality becomes protection. Patience becomes accompaniment. The Vincentian charism becomes a home where women can begin again.

With information taken from https://www.vinzi.at/haus-rosalie/