H4WRD 2024 FAQ Spotlight: Hollywood Clubhouse & Board and Care Homes

DATELINE: Hollywood, CA (April 19, 2024)

One of Hollywood 4WRD’s goals over the years has been to highlight, elevate and amplify the voices of the various stakeholders in our community committed to our collective mission of preventing and ending street homelessness in Greater Hollywood. This is especially true when it comes to the voices of lived experience, which always serve as a reminder of the very human stakes involved in our mission.

When Joanne Voiro spoke to our community recently on one of H4WRD’s bimonthly member meetings, she shared movingly about how her life had improved since moving into one of the local board and care homes in Hollywood. In so doing, Joanne also helped to shine a light on two topics covered in newly updated sections of H4WRD’s just-released 2024 Revised FAQ:

1. The Hollywood Clubhouse 
2. Board and Care Homes

The Hollywood Clubhouse

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Joanne is an inaugural ambassador for, and current member of The Hollywood Clubhouse, one of the signature elements of the H20 program. The Clubhouse is at the center of the H20 Community Map for good reason. As a peer-led center where people living with serious mental illness can discover a renewed sense of purpose, self, and connection, it is the embodiment of the compassionate, community-based treatment H20 was brought to Hollywood to provide.

The Hollywood Clubhouse was launched in partnership with Fountain House, the organization that founded the “Clubhouse Model”. For its first 6 months of existence, the Clubhouse operated on a popup basis under Kerry Morrison and Evangeline Lee from Heart Forward LA. In fact, it was Kerry and Evangeline who encouraged Joanne to share her experiences with the H4WRD community.

“One of our main goals in supporting the launch of the Hollywood Clubhouse was to ensure all the members felt seen and heard,” Evangeline explains. “As a member that cares deeply about her community and sharing her journey, I wasn’t surprised when we offered Joanne the chance to talk about her life at the Bel Air Guest Home, she leapt at the opportunity!”

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You can read more about the Hollywood Clubhouse, and the H20 program in general, on p. 28 of our 2024 FAQ in General Discussion of Homelessness.

Board and Care Homes

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Board and Care Homes were the main area of focus for Hollywood 4WRD’s member meeting on March 5th, 2024, when H4WRD’s members were treated to a presentation from The Future Organization on ‘Serving Our Vulnerable Populations’, TFO’s impactful Board and Care Report.

Joanne got the meeting off to a powerful start. Sharing about the warm and caring treatment she received at Bel Air Adult Residential Facility (also knowns as a board and care) aligned perfectly with one of the central premises of the TFO presentation: LA County and all in our community must do more to shore up these precious Board and Care resources if we truly want to do what’s best to serve our most vulnerable populations.

You can read more about Board and Care Homes on P.74 of the 2024 FAQ, in the section on “Different Types of Interim Housing” in What Are the Alternatives to Living on the Streets?)

For those who would like to contact Joanne and ask her more about her experiences, you can reach her here. She has a new email address and is excited to practice her email skills, and would welcome questions about her lived experience and/or expressions of gratitude for her service to our community. 

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(Please note: this blog reinforces H4WRD’s pillars of Education, Service Coordination, and Innovation. For more on our four pillars, please visit the About Us page of our website.)

Additional Resources:

• Hollywood 4WRD’s Revised 2024 FAQ: A comprehensive Handbook on Homelessness in Hollywood
• Hollywood 4WRD One-Sheet: A brief overview of who we are and what we do.
• Hollywood 4WRD 2023 Annual Report: A more in-depth look at our focus and priorities during a productive 2023.
• H4WRD’s Homelessness in Hollywood Help Sheet: A handy one-sheet of local resources we encourage you to share widely and print out for the office or home!
• H4WRD’s YouTube Channel: Our growing library of relevant videos, including the video of Joanne speaking at our Member Meeting.