With a full-time job, a full load of classes at Central Oregon Community College and full responsibility for her 10-month-old daughter, it’s hardly surprising that Jessica Stewart acts older than her 18 years.

”You’ve got to grow up someday,” the Bend resident said, cradling her daughter, Cynthia, on Friday morning, her only day off. ”Why make it later when you might not have a later?”

Stewart has had more than enough of a precarious future.

That she proved by pulling off a turnaround that she credits, in part, to Grandma’s House, a faith-based shelter in Bend for teens who are pregnant, parenting or plan to give their child up for adoption. Grandma’s House receives no state or federal dollars, instead relying on individual donations and the United Way of Deschutes County for funding.

The shelter, which has six beds, takes in teens at any point during their pregnancy and allows them to stay until their child learns to walk, program manager Wendy Lucker said.

Stewart was five months pregnant with nowhere to go after she was released from the Rimrock Trails Adolescent Treatment Center in Prineville. She was recovering from a substance-abuse habit that had led to a brief bout of homelessness and losing custody of her first child, a son.

”I don’t know what I would have done without Grandma’s House. I probably would have gone back to the streets,” Stewart said. ”I thank God every day for giving me that option.”

Yet her first stay at Grandma’s House, when her son was born three years ago, had been troubled.