- Welcome back, y'all!
When women help women, we are an unstoppable force,
and that's the concept behind the Alexandria House,
a transitional home for women here in Los Angeles.
For three decades, it's provided safe and supportive housing
for women, including moms and their kids.
Here to talk about it is founding director,
Sister Judy Vaughan, along with Felicia,
a former resident of the Alexandria House.
Everybody give it up for them!
(audience cheering)
So welcome to the show.
And Judy, tell us more about yourself
and the Alexandria House.
- Well, first of all, Kelly,
I have to thank you so much for finding us.
And this is one of those miracles that we're on the show,
so thank you so much.
I'd say I'm a third generation LA person. I love the city.
- [Kelly] Yes.
- I also identify myself as a cultural Catholic
and I'm a long time activist
and have learned a tremendous amount from women,
really internationally, that are strong, resilient
and working for justice.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And so that's sort of who I am.
- It's a powerful experience, yeah.
- And who I am really is due to the women
who have touched my lives
and challenged me to be a better person.
Part of that whole journey,
in 1996, we were offered a home
from the Immaculate Heart Community to use
for women and children, and 13 of us,
many of us who had been arrested together,
who knew each other,
but really wanted to continue to do more,
made the decision to start a transitional residence program,
a shelter, for single women and women who are homeless,
women with children who are homeless.
And that was the start of Alexandria House.
And it's been an amazing 26 year journey for me.
- Wow! 26 years.
So one thing that makes the Alexander House unique
is that you do allow mothers to bring their kids, right?
- Absolutely. And probably--
- Which is like, what is the other option?
Like, I'm a mom like, you can't like,
there's no other option when you're a mom.
You're like, that's a need, that's a necessity.
Even for the children.
- Absolutely. Absolutely.
And the fastest growing number of homeless folks today
is single women and women with children,
and there's just not enough places for anyone,
but especially for women with children.
And you're right, what's the alternative?
And we try to make the place, because it is for kids,
about 85% are coming out of domestic violence situations,
we try to make it as homelike as possible,
and as fun as possible.
We do believe in trauma informed care
and try to put together programs
that really are gonna help the families.
- That's amazing 'cause while there is all that violence
and while there are hard times,
there's also so much joy to be had.
- [Judy] Yes.
- So it's nice to show the juxtaposition of that.
So Felicia, tell us about, oh, sorry Felicia.
That's how you say it. And I said, Felicia,
'cause I have a friend named Felicia. Sorry.
So Felicia, tell us about your experience
living in the house. How did you find it?
- It's an amazing place.
Just growing up, I had a couple of challenges in my life
just dealing with sexual violence
and just ups and downs in different relationships
and everything, and then I found myself
with a three day notice.
I had my daughter and I had to go on disability for a while
and then I just couldn't continue paying the regular rent.
And so I found Alexandria, and when I went in there
it was just, I was amazed at all the women,
just all the cultures that was there
and it was just welcoming.
It's just helped me out so much, you know,
just being there just really changed my life being there.
- Well, Judy you're facing bigger challenges than ever now.
So what are they?
- Well, I think everyone knows, who is aware of LA,
the housing crisis.
- Wow. Yeah.
- There's just no affordable housing for folks,
so people can do everything right going through our program
and still are faced with
where am I possibly gonna find a place to stay?
And then COVID complicated everything.
And then we--
- By complicated you just mean took a machete to it, yeah.
- [Judy] That's much more descriptive
and to the point, yeah. - Yeah. Yeah.
- We get about a thousand calls a month
from folks we're not able to welcome to the house,
but all of these things really,
because we're an all women staff and an all women board,
really, sometimes those difficulties
just draw and create other possibilities
and bring out creative ways of trying to deal with them.
So even during COVID we started a food distribution
with the help of partnering agencies
for more than 1800 people.
- [Kelly] Wow.
- We also started a new program called Startup Sisterhood
because we really wanted to hone in, you know,
some of the women who were the most recently hired
were the first to be let go,
which really was impacting rent.
We had a 93% success rate of folks
who moved through our program and stay in permanent housing
but COVID really made it much more difficult.
So now we have a program not only to help women
maintain a job, get a job, but also
many of the women who come have great creative ideas
about how they'd like to start their own business.
So we've started a Startup Sisterhood program.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- So we're really working hard to respond
to the needs of the day and, yeah.
- Which are ever changing
- [Judy] Ever changing.
- Yeah.
- And we have women who are at a point of their lives
that they really want to be able to share their story,
to try to break through some of the stereotypes.
So I would just encourage people to really hear stories
- [Kelly] To listen.
- To hear Felicia. To listen. Thank you. So.
- Listen. Instead of trying to fix something
you know nothing about.
- Right.
- Listen to what the problem is to try and help. Yeah.
So Judy, the Alexandria House has gotten
a surprising amount of support from Hollywood, right?
- Well, you know how it happened is
because people connected with some of the folks who came,
actually came and volunteered.
For example, one of Kim Kardashian's friends
helped provide childcare so the moms on Mother's Day
could have a really nice lunch.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And so when they were looking for something,
the word got out, so Kim Kardashian came
and it really, it was a wonderful experience.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And it helps folks who are homeless realize
that people are paying attention and do care.
So that was great.
- And it's helpful 'cause she has such a massive following.
- [Judy] Right.
- So when she talks about something, it brings light,
it's such a cool thing to do with your spotlight.
- Yeah. And another really, really significant one for us
was Naya Rivera from "Glee".
- Yeah.
- Went through and looked and found us
and volunteered to do childcare onsite.
- Oh wow.
- And after her tragic death, the "Glee" cast
and her family really wanna continue the legacy
and continue to support us,
and probably the most recent one
was Justin Bieber and Quavo.
They filmed their video "Intentions" at our house.
And I just say to everyone,
if you have six minutes and 58 seconds to watch that video,
because it shows the community,
what we're trying to be as a beloved community.
- [Kelly] Yeah.
- And it shows joy
and it tells the story of three of our women
who moved through the program.
And, so.
- [Kelly] I love that.
- It was an amazing exp--
- What a cool thing to do.
- It was. A cool thing. - Yeah.
- And those who are in their 20s and 30s and 40s
were so excited about Justin Bieber,
but the little kids, and they danced on the table,
were so happy Quavo was there.
So it sort of. - I love it.
- It sort of had something for everybody.
- Everybody's got their hero, yeah.
- Yeah. It was all good. It was all good.
- I love that. - [Judy] It's all good.
- Well, Felicia, you were able to move out.
So tell us about your life now.
- Oh my gosh. My life now is so much better.
Like, we're in a house now, and me and my kids.
I have five kids now, when I first came I had three,
and then now we're able to just run around.
And then I also just the garage that we have,
I made it into a SheShed
because of the weekly meetings that we would have,
we would talk about our goals,
like what we wanted in the future.
And it's like right now I actually, I'm living it,
like right now having the house and the garage
and you know, just the typical things that you would want
and I'm just.
- But now that you've achieved that dream,
like you can dream bigger.
- [Felicia] Yes. - In that she-cave, yeah.
- Yes, yes. Definitely.
I just, I'm just so grateful just to have it right now.
And I know without Alexandria House
it wouldn't have been possible 'cause even the budgeting
and just all building up my credit,
learning all those things, being there
is how I was able to get to this point in my life.
- I'm so glad your life has turned around.
That's amazing for you and your kids.
- Yes. - Yes.
- I'm so grateful to Judy because she just,
when I first came, I just remember her
just welcome us in and everything, and she is amazing.
Like, she's here. Oh my God.
She just gives and gives.
I don't know if she sleeps sometime,
I don't believe it's no one.
If you mention her name, all goodness, all praise,
and different things will come out
because she's just such an amazing woman.
Like, she has definitely changed my life completely.
I mean, I just.
- [Kelly] Wow, what amazing footprints to lead by.
- I wish we can duplicate her.
- And here's an amazing thing.
Felicia didn't share it, but she's also now on staff for us.
We have six of our past residents serve on our staff
and they know our reality from the inside out,
and really brings such a richness
to who we are as an agency.
- And such a testimony to all the new people coming in
that you've been there, you know.
- And there's life after being homeless,
there's life after that.
- [Kelly] Light at the end of the tunnel.
- So thank you for saying yes to taking that position.
- [Kelly] Yeah. - That is so true.
- I love this story. I love y'all so much.
We reached out to our friends at Ralphs,
who are committed to providing fresh,
affordable groceries for everyone.
And their goal is to create communities
with zero hunger and zero waste by 2025.
It's a big goal, we can do it though,
which is why they are proud
to donate $10,000 to the Alexandria House.
- Oh my gosh. - Oh my gosh.
- Thank you so much!
Well, I'm gonna donate 10,000 more
because I think that's amazing and there's so much need.
There's so much need for that. And that's a beautiful thing.
Wow. Well thank you so much guys for sharing this story.
It's so beautiful. It's gonna help a lot of people.
That's what's important about sharing your story.
- Thank you.