Lotus House Shelter

PROGRAMS: Empowering Women to Succeed - With multi-faceted, comprehensive and coordinated programming, Lotus House seeks to support, connect, uplift, and empower women to succeed. Each woman accepted into the Lotus House has an individual action plan for improving her quality of life on every level, achieving greater self-sufficiency, and transitioning to alternate permanent housing. She shares in the responsibilities for the daily operation and up-keep of the Lotus House in a community environment, with daily chores including meal preparation, laundry, cleaning, and grounds maintenance as part of basic life skills building.
	In addition to shelter, food and clothing, Lotus House provides access to a wide range of support services and resources such as medical and mental health treatment, educational workshops, tutoring, computer classes, job training and placement, and legal referrals, as a well as a host of enrichment activities such as creative writing, dance, music, art classes, and so much more. Pre-natal care, birthing and parenting classes and early infant development are provided to pregnant women and their infants through the Healthy Start program. Lotus House counselors and resource coordinators meet with each woman weekly for life coaching, individual and group counseling, social services support, and referrals to a wide range of community resources to assist her in fulfilling her action plan. Though the Foundation seeks to provide the resources and support essential to achieving individual action plans, each woman’s success is her own and the Lotus House is about empowering these special women to become whole again and truly who they were meant to be.
	Basic Services – Lotus House provides free transitional housing for up to fifty women (and up to 16 infants) at a time in a respectful, non-stigmatizing, community environment, with shared living spaces and varied community facilities, including kitchen, laundry, computer, counseling and community rooms. Women accepted into the House are permitted to live free for up to a year, with three meals per day, donated clothing, and access to a full continuum of support services. A special enclave in the heart of Overtown, the shelter serves as a sanctuary for homeless women with quiet spaces for therapy and reflection amidst its lushly landscaped grounds and vegetable, herb, and meditation gardens.
	Social Services and Resource Coordination – Every woman accepted into the House participates in developing an individual action plan for improving her quality of life on every level, achieving greater independence, and transitioning to alternate permanent housing. Based on a body, mind and spirit paradigm, each action plan covers the full range of issues needing attention, including physical health and well being, mental health, social services benefits, educational needs, job training and placement, legal and financial issues, and steps to transitioning to a new home. Our resource coordinators and job placement specialist meet with each woman on a weekly basis to provide basic life coaching and assist in accessing community resources and social services, including medial and mental health referrals, affordable housing options, financial seminars, legal services, credit counseling, and job opportunities.
	Counseling and Health and Wellness Program – The health and wellness program utilizes a holistic approach to educating, nurturing and inspiring women with a combination of classes, educational seminars and guest lectures, offered by trained instructors as well as volunteers. Lotus House provides weekly individual counseling, as well as group counseling focused on such issues as domestic violence, substance abuse, anger management, and building self esteem. Our health and wellness programming includes health and nutritional seminars, inspirational speakers, relaxation techniques, yoga, and massage therapy. For unmet medical and mental health needs, our resource coordinators assist women with referrals to free community mental health and medical services and help to coordinate community clinics, hospitals, and volunteer doctors and dentists to provide much needed medical, eye and dental care for the
women it serves. We must still find a way to pay for the out of pocket costs of treatment, such as eye glasses, dentures, implants, and the like. We see first hand the barriers to success for women with unmet medical and mental health needs or who cannot see or read properly or are afraid to smile because of missing teeth, or worse still, cannot eat the food we provide because they desperately need dentures. Upon completion of our new community center, we are plan to implement a regular exercise program and host seminars and services for the Lotus House guests as well as women in need from the neighboring community.
	Arts, Crafts and Enrichment Activities – Lotus House offers a unique and wide ranging art, craft and enrichment program in cooperation with Florida International University’s graduate student program and volunteer instructors, including painting, collage, photography, quilt making, clay, and drawing. In addition, the program includes monthly bead working classes giving the women an opportunity to make small personal items and gifts for others. Through this programming, women are offered a chance to explore their creative source, find their voices, and explore their interconnectedness with and in the world. Instructors are volunteers but supplies must be procured and program activities include some field trips to local museums and collections, as well as an annual art exhibition of their work.
	Tutoring and Literacy Program – Lotus House provides basic tutoring for enhanced reading, writing and arithmetic skills, as well as English literacy, and seeks to provide a voice to the women of Lotus House through creative writing and poetry. Individual tutoring and classes utilize volunteer student instructors from local universities and colleges, as well as professional instructors. Program materials include GED prep books, basic text books, library books, newspapers, magazines and writing materials and supplies.
	Computer Classes and Job Training and Placement – Lotus House provides individual and group instruction in computer basics, as well as individual assistance with resume preparation, interview skills, dressing for success with our donated clothing, job searches and placement. This program also provides instruction to those women who are not on a work path as part of our life skills programming for locating and selecting housing and other community services and resources. Guests are allowed to utilize computers, basic office equipment (such as copiers, fax machines, postage, etc.), office and paper supplies, and are provided tokens to and from job interviews and work; supplies include all such items and set up of additional computer stations. This very important programming is critical to the success of each and every woman at the Lotus House. We also hope to begin offering some basic computer classes and job training to women in our Overtown neighborhood, funds permitting.
	Cooking and Sewing Classes – Upon completion of our new community center, Lotus House will expand its life skills programming to include basic instruction in cooking and basic food prep, in some cases to prepare women for entry level positions in the restaurant industry. This course will be conducted by a series of volunteer “guest chefs” to teach basic food prep and cooking skills. Course materials include food supplies, basic equipment, handouts, note books and the like. In addition, we will seek to establish a sewing center to provide instruction and basic supplies for sewing, crocheting, and needlepoint skills, providing in some cases preparation for entry level positions in garment making industry but more often basic life skills for making, altering and repair clothing (very important when your primary source of clothing in donated), as well as a source of recreational craft work.
	Mothers and Infant Services Program - In the first year of operations, we saw first hand the desperation of women who were homeless and pregnant, facing discrimination in employment, struggling to obtain proper nutrition, in need of medical and mental health care, and of course, lacking a safe home and support system for themselves and their babies. We heard wrenching stories of babies taken at birth because the moms lacked a safe home and proper support system. One young woman described her tearful anguish as she approached a police officer outside a grocery store pleading for help for the baby in her arms because she was homeless, starving, and unable to purchase formula or care for her baby; taken from her immediately by the officer, this mother was unable to navigate the legal proceedings that followed because she lacked a safe secure home and support system for herself.
Grief-stricken, she never recovered her infant. Lotus House was forced to turn away this very needy, fragile population of mothers-to-be and infants because it lacked adequate facilities for their special needs when it first opened. Thankfully, our prayers for these women and infants were answered by a kind benefactor who donated the funds to enable the Foundation to purchase and open a new building in March of 2007, dedicated to serving women who are homeless and pregnant and their infants. The first baby born into the house was aptly named “Destiny,” and she braved a new path for many more to come! The new wing of Lotus House provides a home for up to sixteen moms or mothers-to-be and up to sixteen infants at a time. In addition to providing basic services such as housing, food, clothing and baby supplies, Lotus House arranges for pre-natal care, birthing and parenting classes, and infant screening and care through the Healthy Start program of the University of Miami and Jackson Hospital. Each mother-to-be works closely with her resource coordinator at the Lotus House to access available benefits for her baby, and of course our full programming and support services are there to assist our mothers-to-be and moms and babies as they begin their new lives together. Following the birth of her child, each mom works with our job placement program for assistance in securing employment and begins saving her egg for her future transition to a permanent home with her new infant. When mom and baby are ready to move, Lotus House assists in providing donated furnishings for their new home and serves as an ongoing resource to provide stability to these new families. We are seeking additional operational funding and supplies for the expansion program serving this fragile homeless population of moms and babies. Funds permitting, Lotus House hopes someday to fund a much needed infant services coordinator, to better ensure that our babies are learning and actively engaged from the very start and will be fully connected to services and resources that are available in the community. Work Program – Lotus House hopes to launch an innovative work program for the “least employable” – that is women with disabilities or who are otherwise not readily employable due to age, mental health issues, physical limitations and the like – and is designed to engage these women in meaningful activities that provide supplemental income for both the women and Lotus House. Activities may include baking, beadwork, sewing, marketing and sales, as well as all aspects of running a small business. Lotus House plans to hire a specialized teacher/coordinator and purchase a range of equipment and supplies to launch this program, with the aim of generating revenue that will ultimately permit this program to be self-funding through sales of goods produced by its participants. This program is in the planning stages and Lotus House is seeking sponsorship prior to implementation.