LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Bows decorate Ashley Warren's door in what was an old hotel guest house.
"They let us do all of our own stuff here," she said, smiling at the sparkling ribbon her four kids put on their home's threshold for the holidays.
The Warrens just started their stay at the Community Care Campus—even though it's still under construction. They're one of six families living at the campus, saved from living on the street.
"When I came here, I didn't have a birth certificate, social security card, nothing," Warren added.
Volunteers of America staff helped get those documents from her home state of Michigan. There, Warren lived in a shelter for people escaping domestic abuse.
Last year, she followed her mom to Kentucky with about $1,600 saved up. The money went fast. Hotel stays cost nearly $500 dollars a week. She applied for apartments, but was denied.
That forced her into a Louisville shelter with maggots in the showers, she said, but didn't want to name the place that offered her family help.
But her first shower at the Community Care Campus was much different.
"I was just letting the water run on me and I was just bawling my eyes out," she recalled. "I was so grateful, being able to wash. We don't have to ask, we don't have to worry here. Like that worry of 'how am I going to wash the kids clothes for school?'"
With those worries gone, she noticed her relationship with her oldest daughter improve dramatically. The 16-year-old student now making it to the morning pot of coffee before her mom.
Housing Services Director Tamara Reif looks ahead to the campus's expansion, providing more stable living situations.
"I think it could be a model way of doing things, where you have this corridor of services all concentrated in one area. There's several of us here. We all do things differently, but we do them how we do it best," she said.
Other advocates for people experiencing homelessness, like the Salvation Army and Hope Village, are nearby in Smoketown's border with I-65 and downtown Louisville.
In a month, six to seven more family units are opening upstairs. At the edge of the campus, 29 more units will be available for families just like Warren's by the end of next summer.
It's an opportunity giving almost fifty families hope that this shelter stop could be their last.
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