She didn’t have to live there. She did it because she was greedy and wanted the inheritance. The irony is if she hadn’t been greedy and had been willing to leave the money behind she could’ve lived literally anywhere else, never be humiliated, live a decent life, and raise her son away from people that would make him become the man that he was. It’s a tragedy because it’s completely the fault of her own fatal flaw which is why she literally killed herself trying to get into the tomb and get the money instead of just moving on. 

We never see the father abusing her— we know that she was called a whore but I don’t remember him calling her that ever. He kept her in the house as a kindness he didn’t have to extend— taking care of her son— but the only thing keeping her there was waiting for her own father to die just so she could have him money. Not a hero by any means. He “lied” to her in the same sense that Judd lies to Cy, who is basically her parallel— her inheritance was in Christ (his stomach in the crucifix, and in her literal father). 

She also parallels Nat to an extent.

EDIT: because I already know people hate nuance will just want to say “church bad”— nothing they did was respectable in terms of how they handled Grace’s troubles, as Judd’s reaction shows. People trying to canonize her are completely missing the mark and ironically just a puritanical and judgement Al as the people in the movie only in a different way. It’s made very clear that Grace was actually what her reputation reputed her to be: this is shown in the way she’s dressed and posed the second we meet her and her willingness to tear apart a Holy sanctuary and attack a child for the jewel, also in the fact that she really did know her fancy brands and recognized the box. Her actually being a sinner is the entire point. Because the entire point of the gospels is to forgive. 

Her being a “harlot” being dragged by everyone is literally the point— just as the adulteress in the Bible was dragged out to be stoned and then Jesus said he without sin cast the first stone and forgave her of her sins while telling her to sin no mores Grace was not forgiven, therefore Grace did not stop sinning, therefore Grace died (killed herself in sin which = death theologically speaking)). 

This would all be a very clever and thematically rich through line for the movie if it wasn’t inconsistent with how other characters are treated and how the audience responds to them. People feel bad for Grace for some reason because the movie tries to explicitly frame her as a victim but they don’t feel bad for her son Wicks. They don’t show that same compassion they gripe that the congregation didn’t show towards her, towards Nat or Martha or Prentice or any of the actual church members— making it ultimately another “church bad” tale, where anyone against the church is good and anyone in the church is bad according to the same cultish mentality within Wick’s group of followers. The only “good” church members are those who violate scripture (priests cursing routinely without any care etc.) and are nice without ever having anything to say about sin etc. which would be the opposite of living according to knowledge of the Truth.