EL CAJON, Calif. (KGTV) – Sometimes all you need is a fresh start.
“I've been homeless twice. Both times I was homeless for a good amount of time.” Tierra Jenkins said.
A house can be the start of turning things around for many people.
“A roof over my head, warmth, food on the table instead of, you know, in your lap or on the side of the road somewhere,” Jenkins said.
“Home is like a safe haven, place to come to and feel comfortable,” Zachary Anderson said.
Tierra Jenkins, her husband Zachary Anderson, and their three kids were homeless, living in a shelter for seven months before they moved into an El Cajon apartment.
Despite having four walls, it didn’t feel like home just yet.
“Tierra and her husband Zach both were in the foster system as youth themselves. And so it is their deepest desire to give to their three children the home that they always wished they had for themselves,” Laura Lavoie, Executive Director of Humble Design San Diego, said.
Lavoie and her non-profit work with different outreach agencies to turn houses into homes for those who were recently homeless.
“Last summer, we had a study commissioned by the Homelessness hub at UC San Diego to evaluate the impact of our services, and they found that 98% of the people we serve stay housed after receiving our services,” Lavoie said.
Those services led to a moment like what happened last Friday. Their home got a makeover.
“I was like, oh my gosh, this is our house. And we all felt it, we just did it. I felt my kids' emotions, I felt my husband's emotions, and we're just so like happy. We're so happy about every single room,” Jenkins said.
Turning this family’s new house into a home with help from the San Diego Padres Foundation.
“It was a really special day because we had two wives and girlfriends of current Padre players who came and joined our volunteer group, and they just dove all the way.”
Tierra and her family’s home is the last home in a pilot done by Humble Design San Diego based on that UC San Diego study.
“Their top recommendation was raise more money, scale up your services, help more people. This year, we are practicing the operations of doing four homes a week, up from 3 homes a week, which is our current client cadence,” Lavoie said.
Lavoie told ABC 10News they need the community's support to continue to bring more moments like this one.
“And as soon as we have the funding and the resources available to get to 4 homes a week consistently, we're going to do that,” Lavoie said. “The more people are able to invest in our mission, the faster we'll be able to help more people."
