We Don't Stop Loving Them: Luis Jimenez's Story

Before Luis Jimenez managed four homes and a team of housing navigators, he was living on the streets himself, caught in the grip of alcohol and substance use, watching his life come apart. 

"Life was going upside down," he says. 

Sobriety, family, and a second chance came slowly, through what he calls the grace of God.  He got sober.  He found his way back to his wife and kids.  And then, when he wanted to give back, Grandma's House of Hope found him.

A former colleague, Daniel Roa, brought Luis on as a Housing Navigator with a simple directive:  get participants ready, start housing them.  Luis said yes.

What began as one man's vision became something bigger than any of them expected.  Within a year, Luis had gone from Housing Navigator to Program Manager and Navigation Manager, overseeing four homes in the Behavioral Health Bridge Housing Program (BHBH), a track focused on mental health and substance use disorder recovery, and the navigators working across eleven homes total.

"I still pinch myself to this day," he says. "Honestly, it started with a conversation."

Luis, known to nearly everyone as “Louie”, now leads the team responsible for finding participants their true documentation, their identities, their paths back into stable housing.  He describes the work in the language of a fight: finding barriers, breaking barriers, refusing to take no for an answer.  His team of four navigators, he says, goes the extra mile every time, chasing down paperwork and advocating for participants who have often been overlooked everywhere else.  But underneath the persistence is something simpler. 

"We don't do this for money," he says.  "This is the love of God and the love He's placed in my heart to give back.  And I'm going to continue giving back until the last day that I breathe."

That belief shapes how he leads.  Luis talks about his team the way he talks about family, because to him there's no real distinction. 

"We're together more than we are with our families," he says.  "We stick together, we fight together, we push together, we love together, and we serve together." 

He credits the culture to the top down, a CEO who leads with love, a director who does the same, an admin office that feels like home the moment he walks in. 

"It all comes from the top," he says.  "If the CEO is building something with love, it's going to produce love."

He's quick to point to the people who've carried him alongside the way. 

"I also want to recognize our amazing Assistant Program Manager, Stephanie," Luis says.

"She consistently goes above and beyond to support me, our team, and this program. From BHBH and Housing Navigation to supporting the houses, participants, and everything in between, she is always willing to step in and help." 

He doesn't stop there. "Stephanie, I truly could not do this without you. Your dedication, support, and willingness to go the extra mile are a true blessing. Thank you for everything you do."

For participants, Luis sees his job as more than logistics.  It takes a full team to prepare someone for lasting stability, he explains: case management, navigation, substance use disorder counselors, and housing support services, all moving together toward the same goal.  But housing is only half the mission. 

"The mission is also to make sure that we let them know that they're loved,"  he says. "People come to us broken.  Our job is to uplift them, nourish them, and bring them back to life, so they understand there's another opportunity out there for them."

He shares his own story often, especially with participants who think their future is already decided. 

"I explain to them my stories and let them know about the hope," he says. "This journey is not over." 

What he wants for every participant, he says, is for them to reenter the world without hiding.  To go back to restaurants and movies, to reconnect with family, to walk through life unafraid to show their face again. 

"Now they're going to be in society," he says.  "Now they're going to show their faces."

He's especially proud that the support doesn't end at move-in.  Even after participants are matched with permanent housing, the case management team, the AfterCare program, and the wider staff stay involved, offering SUD services, AA and NA meetings, and continued check-ins whenever a graduate needs them. 

"We don't stop loving them and being there for them," Luis says. "That's why this program is the best I've ever witnessed."

Ask him what sets Grandma's House of Hope apart from other programs, and Luis doesn't hesitate. 

"It's love," he says. "Not something we clock in and out of. It's giving participants all we've got" .

He's on call around the clock, ready to leave dinner with his own family if a participant needs him. 

"Who would not want to work for this company?" he asks.  "Who would not want to come here and get rebuilt when they're broken?"

Under his team's navigation this year, the program is on pace to house 100 people, a rate Luis calls unheard of.  He traces the success back to the same place he traces everything:  a CEO and directors who saw something in him before he saw it in himself, and a team willing to match that belief with the work. 

"You guys saw something in me that nobody else did," he says.  "And now everything that's happening, it's all through the grace of God, but it's because you guys saw the vision."

For Luis, the whole arc, from the streets to leading a team that houses a hundred people a year, comes back to one word he keeps returning to.  Not strategy.  Not funding.  Love.

Luis's story is proof of what happens when belief meets opportunity.  Your support builds the kind of team that shows up at 2 a.m., fights for every participant's paperwork, and never really clocks out.  Join us and help fuel the next story of someone who was seen, believed in, and given the chance to lead.