When you move into a new house, it can take a while to learn the little idiosyncrasies of the place and the right place for all your things.
For the residents of Casa de Luz in Tijuana, this was an especially interesting task. They needed a lot of space to be able to fit as many people as they had, and decided to rent out an old club to be their new home since it had lots of space.
But this meant figuring out where people would stay and sleep, and what that might look like.
They decided to set up one area specifically for families, and another for solo LGBT refugees, many of whom felt most comfortable in a pitched tent in the house that offered a little bit more privacy.
One thing they hadn’t quite figured out was how to keep everyone safe. A small child could easily slip through one of the many railings they had, or stumble down the stairs.
To help solve this, we decided to stop by a second-hand shop with more things than you could have imagined — lots of old scrap wood, or old iron gates, but also children’s bikes, shelves, doors, or beds.
We found some wood that was perfect for the railings and an additional baby gate for the stairs leading up to the family area of the house.
When it was delivered to the house, a big group started to set it up and get the house up to the standards they so wanted.
Transforming a club to a home is no easy task! But bit by bit, this empty, cavernous space is becoming a home.
Meet Steve! Steve is the Executive Director for ORAM, the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration, and member of the Alight family of organizations. Before joining ORAM, Steve served as the Senior Director of Global Initiatives at Out & Equal, the biggest LGBT workplace inclusion non-profit. Steve also launched a non-profit, Alturi, which increases engagement by American donors to organizations improving the lives of LGBT people globally.
