Our mission is to serve the homeless, in a safe and secure, secure and stable housing environment in superior neighborhoods, to promote recovery.
I want to provide safe homes to shelter women in need. When I was younger, I participated in Tony Robbins outreach events. During one of these events for Thanksgiving, I searched for a woman to give my toiletry bag to but could not find one. I discovered that women, more often than men, had to hide to protect themselves from assault and burglary. I also discovered that state and federal funding was being reduced from the very programs that offered services for women to get back on their feet and I wondered where they were going without those services available.
The idea of helping the homeless was born 32 years ago. I quit my 8-5 corporate job, started a business doing remodeling with the plan to convert homes into women’s shelters. Although, I delayed my goals while getting sober, living life, and doing odd service work, I never gave up on the dream.
I named my organization Karen’s Place Foundation in honor of my mom. She has passed on, but would be proud of what her daughter is doing in her name. My mom and her identical twin, at 14 years old, were placed in a Seattle girls group home to escape an abusive situation in Eastern Washington where they were born and raised. Despite that rough start, they both went on to be Candy Stripers at the local hospital, met and married my dad and my uncle and successfully raised families.
Lately I have realized I do not need to tackle this issue of homelessness alone. I’ve volunteered at the Union Gospel Mission out of downtown Seattle going out on the LOVE van, delivering sandwiches, coffee, snacks, clothing and toiletries to the homeless off and on for a few years and see that the situation has no easy answers but often, I think if people are given the chance, meaning a safe roof over their heads, a supportive family environment in a shared housing situation where all parties that live there have a common goal of getting back on their feet (or even getting on their feet for the first time), then I’m fulfilling my dream of a shelter.
I want to do this because I have had as much chance of ending up homeless as anyone else. Thankfully, that is not what happened to me.
