Angel Network Charities
Ivy Olson, Director
Darlene Kipi, Staff
5339 Kalanianaole Highway
Honolulu, Hawaii 96821
(808) 377-5477
(808) 377-1841
(808) 373-7233 fax

Ivy Olson tells a very unusual story about angels, a story that cynics might be inclined to doubt. But it's hard to remain a cynic when you see the sincerity in her eyes and hear the commitment in her voice.

It goes like this: Quite a few years ago, divorced and a single mom in San Diego, she and her kids were alone on Thanksgiving. Their holiday banquet consisted of hot dogs on the beach, or so they thought. But when they came back to their apartment afterward, an elderly neighbor was waiting for them with a surprise: She had made them an old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner. "It was a wonderful experience of unconditional love," Olson said.

The next day, when Olson went to the woman's apartment to return the cleaned Tupperware that she'd given them full of leftovers, the old woman's apartment was empty. No inhabitant. No furniture. Olson asked the building manager where the resident had gone, only to receive a puzzled frown. That unit, the manager insisted, had been vacant for months. It must have been an angel, Olson says. Whatever really happened, the event changed her life and inspired her to a vow: "I made a vow that day to myself, my children and my God that I'd do what I could to take care of the people in my space."

Years later, in 1989, when she'd moved to Hawaii and married the pastor of Honolulu's Calvary-by-the-Sea Lutheran Church, the church began offering a temporary home to single mothers rendered homeless by rapidly rising rents, fired by Japanese investment in the region's residential property. Olson called on her fellow parishioners to do more than just shelter homeless people. "It's awesome to send a check to Ethiopia," she said, "But that's 10 seconds of work. We needed to start a BACKYARD ministry -- the Angel Network -- angels are God's messengers. That's where we started."

Olson knew from the start that self-reliance, not charity, was the key. "We wanted to give people a hand up, not a handout," she said. To do that, they founded what would be the first of dozens of "Ohana Houses," from the Hawaiian word for "extended family."

The church leased a three-bedroom house and opened it to three homeless families, who'd live there in a transitional setting, paying what little they could while the church picked up the rest, with church members providing love and support as well as the money needed to cover living expenses until the residents could get back on their feet.

Working entirely with donated money and church volunteers, the group quickly expanded to five Ohana Homes. Then, amid a political controversy and a NIMBY attitude from the church's affluent neighbors, Angel Network won a state contract to house and rehabilitate a larger number of homeless people. Combining money from the State Stipend Fund, sliding scale contributions from the homeless families themselves, and money from foundations and individual donors, Angel Network has mobilized 14 churches to operate a total of 46 Ohana Homes all over O'ahu.

In a model evolved independently but quite similar to the outstanding Bridge and Homeward Bound programs in Phoenix, Angel Network makes decent housing available to homeless families that's not segregated but mainstreamed in the community; mobilizes volunteers to support and work with the families; and focuses intensive and holistic social services on the families to help them develop realistic personal plans and get the training, counseling and education they need to rebuild their lives and find good employment and permanent housing, ideally within 12 to 18 months.

Angel Network operates almost entirely on a volunteer basis, with just one paid staff member, Darlene Kipi; Olson herself takes no salary. Its annual budget for the 46 houses is a lean $750,000. But the real key, she says, is the support by church people. "When a family gets adopted by a church," she said, "They have a community. They have a place to belong."

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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