Sister Diane Roche sits on the front porch of Anne Montgomery House, smiling as she thinks back to opening the home a decade ago.The house, located in Northeast Washington, D.C., has given young women an affordable place to live while they studied, completed fellowships or launched careers in one of the nation's most expensive cities.By nightfall, it will close its doors for the last time."I'm 76 years old and running a house like this takes a lot of energy," Roche said."Something inside me just said this is it."It's one of several homes throughout the U.S.
run by the Society of the Sacred Heart.As a member of the international religious order, Roche has worked in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo, helped establish similar intentional living communities in St.
Louis and New Orleans, and today works with a local office of Catholic Charities, helping refugees resettle in the U.S.Anne Montgomery House was simply the latest expression of a calling she says has shaped her entire adult life."Time after time, place after place, wherever I went, I would find a way to build a community," Roche said.Anne Montgomery House is part of a broader housing trend emerging in expensive cities, in which early-career professionals are opting to live in Catholic-run homes that offer below-market rent.But some residents find more than cheap housing.
At Anne Montgomery, a group of young women found a built-in community and support network — an increasingly rare living arrangement, even as young adult incomes fail to keep pace with rent.When Abigail Bulman, 23, arrived at the house, she expected little more than a roof over her head.Instead, she found herself sharing homemade dinners, among other daily routines, that she says transformed a group of strangers into something close to a family."I thought this was going to be a place that we pray in the morning, I had chores to do, and then I was going to go to bed here," she said.
"I had no idea they were going to be people that...