When we sat down with the house members of Casa Arcoiris to talk about their ideas, there was a need that came up quickly and seemed to resonate with the whole group – fixing the kitchen counter.
After talking things through, we asked to see it and could immediately understand why it stuck out to people. The wood underneath the tile had started to collapse and rot, causing some of the tiles to dive into the counter itself, and there were fruit flies surrounding the holes in the counter.
We knew right away that this was something we wanted to help them address, and were excited when we found out they already knew a repair person who would be able to come fix it.
We scheduled the repair, and while we had them there, we asked for to also fix some of the floor that had rotted away: the holes in the ground were letting critters come in and out of the house.
This way, we’d be able to make sure that people didn’t get hurt stepping on the cracks and keep the house members away from small creatures that might want to pop through the floorboards!
“We’re now getting closer to a dignified space,” said Sire, the Director of Casa Arcoiris. That made our hearts swell – we couldn’t have asked for more!
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.
