About Us

For fifty years, Middle Way House has been providing services to people in crisis. Today, Middle Way House provides empowering services such as emergency shelter; a 24-hour help and crisis line; on-scene advocacy; support services; and transitional and permanent housing solutions to support survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Middle Way House also touches the lives of community members through its education and prevention programs. The agency serves six counties throughout south-central Indiana.

In February of 2019, the board of directors of Middle Way House announced updates to the agency’s organizational statements which reaffirm the agency’s client-centered empowerment model. Together, these statements create a vision which position the agency to meet the current and evolving needs of all survivors-including those from vulnerable populations and marginalized communities.

In the summer of 2020 the board initiated a special focus on racial justice both within the board and with staff to ensure the practice of equity and inclusion throughout every aspect of the agency which included adding a new core value which is listed below. The board also voted to endorse the commitment of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence as described in their recent statement against discrimination and structural racism.

Mission

Middle Way House works to support all survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking; and to educate the community through outreach and prevention programs.

Vision

To end domestic and sexual violence in the lives of all people.

Core Values:

The following core values are central to our organizational structure:

Our History: Who We Are & How We’ve Grown

Middle Way House incorporated as a 501(c)3 in 1971 to provide crisis intervention services to the people of Bloomington. For the next decade, the agency operated as a volunteer organization, responding to needs in the community as they arose.

In 1981, following the arrival of Planned Parenthood and the South Central Community Mental Health Center (now Centerstone) in Bloomington, Middle Way House refined its focus, selecting as its target population survivors of domestic violence and their children.

Today, Middle Way House provides meaningful alternatives to living with violence to hundreds of survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking each year. Further, Middle Way House touches the lives of thousands of community members annually through our educational outreach and prevention programs. We are guided by our vision to end domestic and sexual violence in the lives of all people.