Misty and Leilani curl into the new living room furniture as their babies play on the floor they spent hours happily cleaning.

It's nice to have a floor to clean.

The Salvation Army's Ka 'Ohu Hou O Manoa facility will officially open on Feb. 2, but Misty and Leilani have already moved in. They've been busy sweeping up construction dust and organizing the kitchen. The program is a transitional home for 12 women who are pregnant or have young children, have completed residential drug treatment and are homeless.

"The number of homeless women and children entering the Women's Way drug and alcohol treatment program has just grown steadily in the last few years," said Linda Rich, executive director of the Salvation Army Family Treatment Services. "It went from 15 percent to 27 percent and higher."

The new program will provide another step on the journey from recovery to self-sufficiency. Instead of getting out of residential treatment without a job, job skills, an apartment or a bit of money saved, a two-year stay in this program gives moms a chance to lay down that foundation for their family.

Misty and Leilani, both in their early 20s, came from drug addiction, homelessness and criminal pasts. It's not so much a lifestyle they chose, but one they were both born into. When they first met in treatment last year, they felt they had known each other before. "We probably played together when were little kids living in 'A'ala Park or maybe we were in IHS at the same time," Misty said, helping her toddler Hinano eat his cereal.

"I don't want my daughter to have a childhood like I had," Leilani says, looking at her bright-eyed 9-month-old daughter Zahriya. Parenting classes through the Salvation Army have taught her how to be a mother, she says. Her little girl is teaching her how to be sociable. "When I take her out in public, she's smiling at people and grandmas will start talking to me, so I'm learning how to do that. Before, I couldn't even look people in the eye."

The program is in two 1950s bungalows that were renovated over the past two years. The women pay affordable rent and must have a job or be in school. Household chores will be shared, and there is a husband and wife team, Richard and Debbie Ross, who live on site as resident managers.

Misty and Leilani and their children sat down to a family-style dinner with the Rosses the other night, a simple thing that affected them so deeply they almost couldn't talk about it. "We never had that kind of thing, like a family dinner, before," Leilani said. "That felt so ... yeah."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.