I Didn't Think I Could Have This

This isn't Vanessa’s first time without a place to call home.  The second time she found herself homeless, she also found Grandma's House of Hope, and she says the difference wasn't just getting housed.  It was everything around it.

"They've been there for me," she says.

She lives with mental health challenges, and at her last shelter, that meant managing it alone.  At Grandma's House of Hope, staff made sure she stayed on top of her medication, her psychiatrist appointments, her therapy. 

"Nothing compared to the last shelter that I was in. They're very hands on here."

When she arrived, she wasn't leaving the house.  She had no job, no car, and trauma around men that made her wary of the male staff on site.  Slowly, that changed.  She built real relationships with the Housing Navigator, Luis Tomacino and Program Manager, Luis Jimenez, men she describes as consistently present and encouraging.  Within 30 days she had a job.  Within three months, a car.  By 90 days, she'd become a Community Leader at the home.

"I feel like it was the support system that I didn't think I could have," she says. "At my other shelter, if you didn't work, that wasn't their problem. Here, it's, 'you got this'."

She traces the shift to something staff talk about often:  that the home model isn't incidental, it's intentional.  Grandma's House of Hope places participants in actual homes rather than warehouse-style shelters, and she felt the difference immediately.

"I have a real bed," she says.  “It feels homey. It feels relaxing." 

Staff watch movies with participants on house movie nights.  When she's sick, someone knocks on her door to check on her, and to see if she needs anything.

That sense of family is part of why leaving, even for housing she's worked hard toward, comes with mixed feelings. 

"I'm gonna be very sad when I leave," she told her case manager.  "I'm used to seeing everyone already. I'm used to not being alone." 

She plans to stay connected through Grandma's Family Tree, the alumni association, and two years of AfterCare, and she's already thinking about what comes after that:  finishing school, opening her own business, and eventually applying to work at Grandma's House of Hope herself, so she can be, for someone else, what the program's staff were for her.

Asked what she wants supporters to understand, she doesn't talk about services or logistics.  She talks about relationships. 

"It's not just a staff-client relationship,"  she says. "You  feel like you're family.  They make you feel like you can achieve a lot of stuff." 

Without the program, she says plainly, she'd likely be back in her car, couch surfing, missing time with her seven-year-old son.

She calls the culture at Grandma's House of Hope "wowing."  One staff member says it in a simpler way:  the secret sauce is love.  Two years in, staff say they still hear that reflected back from participants and graduates, and it never stops meaning something.  As Vanessa put it, without hesitation:

"I've never seen any shelter be as caring and compassionate as Grandma's House of Hope has been."

Stories like Vanessa's happen because our model puts relationship first, not logistics.  Your support keeps our homes staffed with people who show up, check in, and stay in touch long after graduation. Join us today and help make the next story possible.