A place for hope and healing: Ardella’s House for formerly incarcerated women opens West Philly location
Ardella's House, a residential program to help formerly incarcerated women with reentry, opened a its second location in West Philadelphia with fanfare on Friday.
When Maria Baez was released from the State Correctional Institution at Muncy in 2021, she had no family in Philadelphia and few resources. The statistics were against her: A third of formerly incarcerated people nationwide can’t find work within four years of their release and experience higher rates of homelessness. In Pennsylvania, the majority of formerly incarcerated people return to prison within three years of their release.
But Baez met Tonie Willis — a guardian angel and shepherd for many women transitioning out of incarceration. In the four years since, Baez has gone on to study business at the Community College of Philadelphia, served as the campus’ student government president, and sat on the school’s board of trustees.
“I came out here for a brand new start, for a new opportunity — a clean slate,” Baez told a jam-packed living room in Overbrook on Friday morning. “I told [Willis], I’m going to be her biggest success story. I want to make her proud, I want to make sure that she does not regret investing in me and believing in me.”
» READ MORE: Ardella’s House helps formerly incarcerated women feel at home during reentry
Baez was among the legions of successes celebrated Friday at the ribbon-cutting of Willis’ Ardella’s House West, the second location of the holistic, residential reentry program. The five-bathroom, seven-bedroom home on North 63rd Street will house at least nine women at a time in the coming months, providing wrap-around support as they navigate the job market, mendrelationships with their families, and reintegrate into their communities.
“For too long, women coming home from incarceration have faced nearly impossible odds — no housing, no income, and little support,” Willis said in a statement. “Ardella’s House West represents not just a home, but a healing space — a place where women can recover, rebuild, and reclaim their futures with dignity and hope.”
Willis founded Ardella’s House in 2010 to help women like Baez bridge leaving prison and rejoining society. After years of fundraising and rehabbing a Strawberry Mansion home, Willis opened the flagship residential facility on North 33rd Street in 2022.
“It felt good to be accepted,” said 33rd Street resident Farren Sweeney. “It just feels really good to make it … It’s helped me get myself together.”
The occasion was marked with purple confetti, proclamations from Philadelphia City Council and the state legislature, pledges to donate as much as $10,000, and gleeful praise for Willis’ steadfast commitment to empowering women.
For decades, the incarceration rate of women has been growing faster than that of men: Nationwide, the number of women in prison increased by more than 585% between 1980 and 2022, according to the Sentencing Project. More than 37,000 women are released from Pennsylvania’s prisons and jails each year, the Prison Policy Initiative reported.
“There are no such thing as throwaway people,” said Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., whose district includes Ardella’s House West.
“Everybody deserves a second, third, even fourth chance to get it right.”