Life & Work with Andrea Kitchen of Hawthorne, Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Kitchen.

Hi Andrea, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My name’s Andrea and I’m the Director of Community Impact at A Sense of Home helping prevent homelessness by creating homes and a community for youth aging out of the foster care system in Los Angeles. Under this role, I like to say “I help people, help people” – whether it’s volunteering their time, donating furniture, investing in our programs, connecting with brand partners – all with the unwavering belief that everyone has a part to play in preventing homelessness for former foster youth. With 50% of the unhoused population in the nation having experienced the foster care system at some point, my heart is and has always been with serving youth, and moving upstream as best I can.

I began my career in nonprofit homeless services over a decade ago while studying under the Civic Engagement Minor at UCLA (go Bruins). I transferred from Pierce Community College in 2012, doe-eyed and bushy tailed with one wish – to support my community however I could.

I have a few theories where this wish came from. As a proud daughter of Chilean immigrants, I remember always looking up to my mother, a U.S. Postal Worker in Canoga Park, as she proudly worked USPS’s annual food drive in March, collecting food cans from her route, never caring how heavy her satchel got. My father, a truck driver by trade and then eventually a USPS maintenance worker, was always a magnet for young people looking for wisdom. I remember one rainy night when a young man was pacing on our street in distress, my father went outside, furrow browed and worried, to ask what was going on. Later on when I asked him about it, he said he helped that young man – maybe 18, or 19 years old, from trying to take his own life. Whether my mom’s affinity to volunteerism or my dad’s empathetic magnetism, they were always buying groceries for someone in need, or letting my friends sleep over our house when they fell into homelessness. When a friend knocked on our door, nine months pregnant and staying at a motel nearby, my mother was the first to let her in.

So at a young age, I volunteered where I could to find my own path – spending time at the San Fernando Valley Mental Health Clinic, working as a Summer Youth Intern at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills, volunteering at my local pet clinic or animal rescue. When I transferred to UCLA under the Civic Engagement Minor, my search continued. I remember attending UCLA’s Nonprofit Networking Night and meeting Tessa Madden, my first mentor. She introduced me to People Assisting the Homeless (PATH) in a way that made my heart skip a beat. I started interning for her back in 2013 while juggling volunteering for PATH’s shelter intake department, and in between crying in the bathroom to my mother, I started to find this slow simmering rage that’s never really left. It’s the rage you get when you see a single mother doing everything she can to keep her housing, or a daughter helping her senior Veteran father from losing his apartment, or a young person without a support system asking for a safe place to sleep before their night shift. Since working at PATH, I’ve worked at St. Joseph Center, Safe Place for Youth, and today – A Sense of Home – with my rage still burning and my loving, steady belief that everyone deserves an affordable, safe home.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Early in my career, I learned the hard way that when I get really stressed out, I get vestibular migraines and vertigo. I found this out when I transitioned as an intern at PATH to a full-time Employment Specialist in 2014, helping Veterans, shelter residents, and parents from our family housing programs find gainful employment. I found myself coming into work early at PATHFinders to clean our computer lab and prepare for the day, and leaving late to make sure my caseload had everything they needed to succeed – whether it was work boots for a new job, bus tokens to get to an interview, or a stipend to obtain a certification. Getting someone a job felt like winning the lottery, and I had a lot to learn from employment service mentors like Alfredo Diaz Madrid and Jonae Watts. I had 40 clients on my caseload and I was spinning – both figuratively and literally. Just as I was starting to plan my next move, Tessa from PATH asked if I was interested in moving into another department – their Development & Communications Department, and I jumped at the opportunity to move to the back-end of homeless services to see if I could regain my equilibrium. I learned community engagement from the best – including Jeremy Sidell and Megan Colvard – and quickly found my footing managing the interim housing meal program, community garden initiatives, furniture assistance program (called PATH’s “Welcome Home Program” at the time), and events like Pink Taco’s Thanksgiving Day Feast. The stress in community engagement is still there, of course, there’s no doubt about that, but I have a huge, monumental respect for direct-service workers who do so much for our unhoused community members every day – and don’t get dizzy along the way.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Back at PATH between 2015-2018, I used to manage their Welcome Home Program where volunteers would come together to fully furnish someone’s new home after having experienced homelessness. LA is a magical place and I’ll never forget helping a family, Veteran, or senior move into their beautiful, new apartment with supporters like Mark & Katie Duplass, Kristen Bell, SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, and countless faith-based organizations or community groups.

I felt like it was fate when I heard about A Sense of Home’s work fully furnishing first-ever homes for youth aging out of foster care. I met up for coffee with A Sense of Home’s Founder, Georgie Smith, back in 2018 to try and learn how to improve PATH’s Welcome Home Program however I could. We’ve stayed connected since.

After PATH, I went onto work as a fundraiser for St. Joseph Center, a leading homeless service provider in West and South Los Angeles, before eventually finding myself serving unhoused youth in Venice at Safe Place for Youth (SPY) under their Deputy Executive Director, Rachel Stich. There, I got to witness Rachel’s magic. As one example of many, I witnessed Rachel leverage family foundations to transform a regular, market-rate home into transitional housing for youth with onsite case management and connections to resources. Together, we invited local community groups, schools, and neighbors to fully furnish SPY’s new housing site before welcoming unhoused youth to safely stay for 18-months until they regained stability. It was a beautiful experience, and I was hungry for even more moments of loving impact.

As fate would have it, A Sense of Home hired Rachel Stich as their first-ever Executive Director in Los Angeles, and I jumped at the chance to work with Rachel and her community magic again. Today, A Sense of Home’s Los Angeles chapter creates 150 homes each year for former foster youth. With an army of volunteers, brand partnerships, and dedicated funders, we fully furnish homes of young adults and families who juggle employment and school and have worked so hard to get a place to call their own. After these “Home Creations,” these former foster youth then have access to individual resource navigation, A Sense of Home’s Educational Scholarships, financial literacy trainings, life skills workshops, referrals for job placement and job training, and more. Helping uplift and empower inspirational former foster youth with nonprofit giants like Rachel Stich and Georgie Smith has been a privilege of a lifetime.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
As you can imagine, I hate LA for its unaffordable housing. And at the same time, I’ve seen the best of our city, where every new connection leads to another, like a firework of impact. You meet one good person and it turns into ten more that could light up any night sky in a bang. One day, I presented at El Segundo Rotary, and they ended up raising $8,000 to sponsor a Home Creation for a young woman’s first-ever apartment. One of their members connected me with the El Segundo Women’s Club who sponsored a car-full of bathroom and kitchen essentials to give the gift of a functional room for countless others. Another member introduced me to Westchester Rotary, who ended up sponsoring their own home while providing all kinds of gifts for the holiday season ahead. Another member introduced me to Hollywood Bed for a donation of bed frames to give the gift of a good night’s sleep for former foster youth. All it takes is one spark, where every connection ignites the next, reminding us that even in a city overshadowed by its challenges, there’s still a firework show worth believing in.

Pricing:

• Everyone has a part to play in preventing homelessness for aged-out foster youth. Please consider volunteering: https://asenseofhome.org/volunteer/
• Consider fundraising to sponsor a Home Creation: https://asenseofhome.org/sponsor-a-home/
• Consider shopping our Amazon Wish List: https://asenseofhome.org/asoh-wishlists/
• Consider donating new or gently used furniture and home goods: https://asenseofhome.org/donate-furniture-housewares/
• Consider donating what you can. Anything helps: https://asenseofhome.org/donate/

Contact Info:

• Website: https://asenseofhome.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asenseofhomeorg/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a-sense-of-home-nonprofit
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ASenseOfHome

Image Credits
Photography by Kaelan Barowsky