About

A House Being Built on Purpose

Selkie House is an Akron-area organization, created to offer women a supportive, community-centered place to live.

Selkie House is currently in development and is working through the applicable Ohio recovery-housing accreditation and certification requirements. Selkie House is not able to accept referrals while certification is in progress.

The gap

Why Selkie House Exists

There is a stretch of the road that gets very little attention: the part after the program ends, when someone has to rebuild an ordinary life — a place to sleep, a way to get to work, people who know her name.

That stretch is usually walked alone, and it is where stability is either built or lost. Selkie House is being created for exactly that stretch.

We are not a treatment provider, and we do not offer clinical care. What we are building is the steady ground underneath the rest of it — a home, a community, and enough room to do the work of putting a life back together.

Principles

What We Believe

Dignity: Respect is the starting condition, not something earned back.
Connection: Lasting change rarely happens in isolation.
Accountability: Shared expectations, held with care rather than judgment.
Personal agency: Each woman is the author of her own life.
Hope: Not optimism — the practical belief that things can be different.
Community: A house full of people who notice when you are missing.
Sustainable independence: A foundation that holds after the door closes behind you.

The name

What the Name Means

In the old stories of the northern coasts, a selkie lives in two worlds. Her sealskin — her true self — is taken and hidden, and she spends years living a life that is not quite hers. The story turns when she finds the skin again and returns to who she was all along.

We are careful with the metaphor. Selkie House is not a fairy tale, and no one here is going to be told that transformation is magic. But the shape of that story is right: the self is not lost, only kept from you for a while.

Healing is not about becoming someone else. It is about rediscovering the strength, identity, and hope that have always been yours.

Leadership

Who Is Behind
Selkie House

Selkie House was Georgia's idea, and we founded it together. Georgia helps lead daily life in the homes. Erik and Stephen look after the buildings — repairs, upkeep, the heavy lifting when something needs moving — along with the finances and systems that keep the homes running. Neither Erik nor Stephen is part of daily life inside them, and neither visits regularly.

Georgia Blueskies ReedCo-founder: Selkie House was her idea. She helps lead daily life in the homes.
Erik SkoogCo-founder: Shares the upkeep of the buildings, and handles the finances that keep the homes running.
Stephen BettingCo-founder: Shares the upkeep of the buildings, and looks after the technology behind Selkie House — this website included.

Present tense

What We Are Building

Selkie House is being developed as a women-centered supportive living environment in the Akron area.

That means a real house with shared meals and a used kitchen; clear house agreements everyone understands; encouragement to build a life outside the walls through work, volunteering, education, and friendship; and support for keeping commitments to any outside providers a resident chooses to work with.

It does not mean clinical treatment, detoxification, therapy, or medical services. Selkie House does not provide those, and we will not describe ourselves as though we do.

Our Approach Where We Are Now