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About Maxine’s Arms
Safe, confidential housing and comprehensive support for individuals and families escaping domestic abuse.
Maxine, whose name this shelter carries. Her story
Our program
What Maxine’s Arms does
Maxine's Arms provides safe, confidential housing and comprehensive support services for individuals and families escaping domestic abuse. The program offers immediate crisis intervention, secure shelter accommodations, and access to trauma-informed advocates who help residents stabilize, recover, and begin rebuilding their lives.
Services include 24/7 crisis response, safety planning, case management, legal advocacy, support groups, and connections to medical, mental health, housing, and financial resources. Residents receive assistance with transportation, basic needs, and, when applicable, age-appropriate services and emotional support for children affected by violence.
The shelter operates on principles of safety, dignity, and empowerment. All services are survivor-centered, culturally responsive, and provided at no cost. The program's goal is to reduce harm, break cycles of violence, and support long-term stability by helping survivors secure safe housing, strengthen economic independence, and access ongoing community-based supports.
Our principles
Safety. Dignity. Empowerment.
Three words that decide how every conversation in this building goes.
Safety
Physical and emotional. A confidential location, a trauma-informed environment, and a plan that fits the actual situation rather than an ideal one.
Dignity
Nobody has to earn help by being the right kind of victim. Services are survivor-centered, culturally responsive, and free.
Empowerment
The goal is not dependence on a shelter. It is safe housing, economic independence, and community supports that outlast us.
Who we serve
Survivors of abuse, and the children who came with them
Maxine’s Arms serves
- Survivors of domestic violence and abuse
- Survivors of sexual abuse
- Survivors of human trafficking
- Teens and young adults facing dating violence, stalking or bullying
- Children exposed to violence or abuse
- Families escaping abuse together
- People seeking a way out of gang involvement
- People who have used abuse and want to change, through our Partner Abuse Intervention Program
- Schools, agencies and community groups seeking prevention education
Where we work
Maxine’s Arms serves Illinois.
The shelter address itself is confidential and is never published — on this website, in our metadata, or in any photograph we release.
Leadership
The people behind Maxine’s Arms
Leadership and board information has not been supplied yet.
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[LEADERSHIP & BOARD INFORMATION REQUIRED]
Every part of this work is held up by someone.
Survivors reaching out. Advocates answering. Neighbors giving. Partners opening doors. There is a place in it for you.