The middle link
Karen Johnson, co-founder of Community Care Housing, searches for rental properties, does necessary renovations and connects individuals to housing. She is currently working with Oxford House.
Vaquero resident Karen Johnson has been working passionately for two decades to bring tenants in need of sober living to group homes for their recovery.
Karen is currently working with Oxford House, a nonprofit dedicated to this cause. She described her position within the housing plan as “being the middle link,” connecting individuals to housing based on need. She avidly searches for rental properties, does the necessary work of renovating and refitting, and then connects people to homes, all so she can watch a community grow.
Before Oxford House, Karen co-founded Community Care Housing (CCH), a nonprofit organization focused on connecting individuals in need to housing. Her goal was to create micro-communities within shared housing; essentially, finding properties to comfortably host six to eight individuals, and then connecting them with therapists, employers and medical professionals.
Group therapies and job training serve as a form of rehabilitation, allowing vulnerable individuals to reestablish themselves within a community. While she works with sober living, her goals for CCH include an array of disadvantaged individuals needing community and support, including veterans, parolees, foster care beyond age 18 and aging-in-place.
For Karen, the issue of proper housing has always been personal, beginning with her mother. She explained that when moving her mom from farm to town, she did not have many health needs, just social needs. Karen recalled that her mother was a bright, sharp woman with a big heart, and needed connection with others as she aged.
“Isolation is as deadly as cancer; everyone needs community, or even physical health can decline. I wish I could have bought land back then, constructed four to five pod units, back-to-back duplexes with a common area in between them,” explained Karen. My mom could have woken up, made coffee, and then gone to the common room to meet with a small community.”
This idea is known as aging-in-place, a shared housing system that serves as an alternative to traditional retirement communities.
Karen’s plans going forward include creating micro-community units, focused on social and mental health needs when physical health is not a concern. Her original ideas have had crossover in many groups in need of community and have already had an immense impact on many lives.
Karen goes above and beyond to bring people together, making her a pillar in our community.
For more information, visit oxfordhouse.org.
By Marly Holsman; photo courtesy of Karen Johnson
