First Light’s mission is to work with homeless women and their children to create hospitality in a safe and nurturing community, to encourage them to maintain dignity, to find hope, to seek opportunity, and to grow spiritually, thereby achieving their full potential. First Light provides much more than a safe place to sleep—ensuring that every guest gets the guidance and support to build confidence and competence to achieve her best level of self-sufficiency and independence.

Each emergency shelter guest or supportive housing resident gets individualized guidance from a qualified professional to develop and adhere to a plan of action to overcome barriers to self-sufficiency. She is referred to the services and treatment she needs including healthcare, legal assistance, job-training, GED preparation, mental healthcare, and substance abuse counseling. “Wraparound social services” is a term of art referring to intensive, individualized care planning and comprehensive, holistic services addressing a wide range of needs. This level of service is the bedrock of First Light’s mission and success. The relationship a guest develops with a caring, educated, experienced social services professional is instrumental to her success in providing safety and stability for herself and for her children. And more than 1,000 volunteers each year ensure that every First Light guest knows she is part of a caring community.

Caring professionals and dedicated volunteers make First Light shine. Founding Executive Director Ruth G. Crosby was the Shelter Manager of the original temporary shelter in 1983 that became First Light. She is on the board of directors of One Roof, the continuum of care for local organizations serving the homeless. Sherry J. Webb, LMSW, Director of Social Services, supervises six social services professionals. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Alabama Conference on Social Work, and she serves on the Advisory Board of the UAB Social Work Program and on the Social Work Advisory Board for the University of Montevallo. Ms. Webb and her staff stay abreast of and work collaboratively with other agencies to provide the extensive supportive services necessary to help the most vulnerable members of our community achieve their highest level of independence and self-sufficiency.

Careful records are kept to quantify the number of women and children served, volunteer hours logged, and the number and location of guests transferred to transitional or permanent housing. An individual, confidential, case record is retained to evaluate the personal accomplishments of each guest in overcoming obstacles such as mental health issues, substance abuse, and in developing life skills to achieve her personal best in independence and self-sufficiency. First Light is about tough love. If a woman is not willing to help herself, she will simply have to make room for someone who will. But First Light guests are not quick-fix projects. They are not pressured to move on or move out after some fixed, arbitrary number of days. Each guest at First Light is given the tools she needs to identify the barriers and challenges that have derailed her and to find the solutions that will enable her to rebuild her life.

First Light started as a makeshift shelter in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church in 1983 by volunteers would not turn a blind eye to homeless women on the streets of Birmingham. But as the homeless population grew, more space was urgently needed. In May of 1998, First Light was incorporated as a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization. With the support of a generous community, the old Granada Hotel was purchased and renovated to serve more women and children, and to serve them better. First Light became the community’s only emergency shelter accessible to homeless women and their children 24 hours a day, providing extensive professional social services and the support of caring, dedicated volunteers. First Light has since established effective supportive housing programs to meet the needs of guests leaving the shelter who need help sustaining housing—and is expanding its reach to provide rapid re-housing to homeless individuals and families throughout the community.