Hope For Senior Homeless Women
Assisting our most vulnerable residents with shelter, advocacy, and guidance on the road back to housing.
Assisting our most vulnerable residents with shelter, advocacy, and guidance on the road back to housing.
Friends of Barbara provides elderly women experiencing homelessness in Ventura County with safe temporary shelter, personalized support, and advocacy to help them navigate complex social service systems and obtain permanent housing. We are committed to restoring dignity, fostering stability, and ensuring that no woman spends her later years without a safe place to call home.
Older adults (aged 55 and older) represent the fastest-growing demographic of the unhoused population, accounting for nearly 20% to 50% of single adults experiencing homelessness. This demographic is increasingly dominated by individuals experiencing homelessness for the very first time later in life, driven by a severe lack of affordable housing and fixed incomes. (National Alliance to End Homelessness)
The "First-Timers": A growing subset of older adults become homeless after age 50 following a lifetime of steady employment. This is typically triggered by late-life crises like the death of a partner, divorce, sudden rent hikes, or severe medical emergencies.(HHS)
A portion of the elderly homeless cohort consists of individuals who have been unhoused for decades, but they are now surviving into advanced old age on the streets. (HHS)
State & Regional Concentration: High-cost housing markets face the brunt of this crisis. For example, adults aged 50 and older make up nearly 40% of the individuals seeking shelter in California.(California Budget and Policy Center)
At Friends of Barbara, we see the homelessness crisis as a sinking ship–we want to serve the most vulnerable first. Elderly women face more challenges on the street than any other demographic.
Founder and CEO Veronica Sanchez was driving in mid-town Ventura and saw an elderly disabled homeless woman struggling with her cart. SHE DECIDED TO HELP.
She put her up in a motel so she would be safe, and shared the experience on Nextdoor, calling her 'Barbara' to protect her privacy. People immediately offered their own assistance in the form of advice, prayers, and financial commitment. These folks were the first Friends of Barbara, and this group has now grown to over 85 members. Like Veronica, the Friends of Barbara have DECIDED TO HELP. We hope this attitude of empathy and caregiving can be exported to communities everywhere, so that this plague of elderly homelessness can be eradicated forever.
STAGE ONE (current)
Sheltering a single (elderly, female, homeless) client in a motel room. Assisting her in document-gathering and connecting and advocating for her to social services. Making sure information is flowing both ways. Advocating publicly for her and utilizing the power of the press and social media to highlight the desperate realities of senior homelessness. Celebrating and promoting the idea of citizen solutions and grass-roots problem solving. Creating a template that any community can copy. Adding clients as we are able.
STAGE TWO (expansion, 501c3)
Working in lockstep with existing social service programs and other non-profit initiatives to establish mutually-beneficial relationships, while creating a unique and dynamic niche of our own. Negotiating lower room rates, building relationships with potential landlords, building and cultivating a vast network of supporters across all income tiers.
STAGE THREE (dreams of the future)
Acquisition of motel or boarding house property in order to create bridge-shelter communities. Development of those communities–keeping seniors active and involved, a rich and varied menu of activities and social opportunities, with bespoke health and nutritional strategies.
STAGE FOUR (completing the circle of care)
Leasing or purchasing and establishing low- and no-income housing options. Development of those communities as above.
This website, like the project itself, is in its infancy. We have applied for non-profit status and it will take time to accomplish that goal. The best way to connect with the group is through our NextDoor page, now 85 members strong! Access it here: https://nextdoor.com/g/rep82di5u
We'll be building up this website as we go along, adding sign-up options and a newsletter, and will be featuring many of the Friends--how and why you became interested in helping, words of wisdom, hopes for the future of Friends of Barbara. This is a grassroots effort and we want to be able to export our 'secret' to other communities. (Our secret is our people: YOU.) It's your compassion and your generosity that keeps this going and keeps Barbara safe indoors.
Love and blessings to all who hope for a world where no one is without safe housing.
Thanks to the LOVE and support of the Friends of Barbara, we've been able to keep our girl safe, sound, and indoors as her case works its way toward housing. Please continue to keep her safe--every dime goes towards her shelter, and we are working to find better rates. God bless the Friends of Barbara!