'Metanoia' is a Greek word meaning change -- change in spirit, transforming personal and social consciousness."

Metanoia House's mission is both to nurture diversity and pursue growth on personal, family, and community levels by accepting the challenge of social responsibility.

Metanoia House accomplishes these goals through a variety of means, including education, artistic expression and hands-on community service endeavors. It is a home where people with the desire to effect change in any aspect of life can come together and share support and resources with each other. Metanoia welcomes and helps not just "Metanoians," but the Willamette Community at large.

Metanoia House adheres to these guiding principles by fostering an environment of friendship and community in a setting unique among the living areas on the University Campus. It is a setting of both intimate familiarity and broad-based acceptance, where residents are more than residents . . . they are family.

Metanoia House believes in being a "community of individuals;" in being a group in which people of all races, creeds, religions, ages, sexes, and sexual orientations, despite mental and/or physical disabilities, are freely accepted and respected for being themselves; in maintaining an open forum welcoming all ideas, and seeking to understand rather than condemn; and in encouraging diversity as being more desirable than homogeneity. Metanoia House is committed to building an environment of awareness, an awareness encompassing all points of view.

Metanoia House believes in action: active participation in the community and in ourselves, for that is how we can make the world a better place.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

More information about Metanoia is also available.