Georgie

Hi, I am Georgie Smith.

I am the Founder of the nonprofit A Sense of Home (ASOH) which strives to prevent homelessness by creating homes for displaced persons. ASOH began when a young person aging out of foster care noticed a video on my blog. What I thought was just a one-off random act of kindness became an opportunity for the community to come together to implement a sustainable solution and improve the lives of the most disenfranchised whilst also improving society as a whole.

Soon after the original random act of kindness , I went looking for the data on the crisis that I had unwitting stumbled into. Only 27% of kids going into foster care are adopted. 50% of the homeless population were once in foster care. I additionally found empirical evidence that confirmed our model is a necessary solution in homeless prevention: A tenancy will fail if an occupant cannot turn their dwelling into a fully functioning home. And that requires far more than a sofa. It requires hundreds of items that form a tool kit to build a healthy and productive life. In my research, I found a new term , "furniture poverty. It is the inability to access, afford, or maintain essential household furniture and goods for a functional, healthy home. One in three American’s live in furniture poverty. And yet only 0.3% of all furniture produced is recycled. Furniture makes up 25% of all durable goods in landfills. Our model efficiently upcycles perfectly wonderful items, no longer needed by the original owner, and thanks to the loving acts of volunteers, these items become a part of a curated and loving designed home that prevents someone from becoming homeless.

Not only does our model prevent homelessness, the second and critically important scientific finding that I unearthed was that a home provides the necessary foundation for trauma recovery. Upon receiving a beautifully designed home, the deeply psychological positive experience of gaining a sense of home, enables the occupant to relearn that a home can be safe, permanent, and nurturing. It is a crucial buffer against trauma, promoting resilience, mental stability, and emotional regulation.

For individuals with trauma histories such as Adverse Childhood Experiences, where home was once unsafe, this supportive, nurturing new relationship with a thoughtfully designed, secure home helps rewire the brain, reducing the risk of long-term health, behavioral, and social issues. It actively shifts the body from a "fight or flight" state (survival) to a parasympathetic state ("rest and digest”); actively rewiring the brain into a state of regulation unlocking the body’s natural capacity for healing, repair, and optimal function.

The clinical psychology term for our community based Home Creation is a "corrective emotional experience”. A Corrective Emotional Experience (CEE) is a therapeutic event, where a person re-experiences a past trauma in a safe, supportive, and new therapeutic context. By experiencing a home differently (that which has been created with love) individuals can rebuild trust, shift negative self-perceptions, and foster long-term emotional healing. A corrective emotional experience is widely considered a key factor in creating lasting, positive change in behavior and mental health.

The Power of Home

One of the most important aspects of our model is inviting recipients to pay it forward. One of the very first recipients to pay it forward, Yolanda became our first employee. We saw how this opportunity to volunteer organically connected Yolanda to a community of (those volunteering) who became her longterm friends and mentors. We observed that these young people not only needed sense of home but also a sense of community. What we discovered is that the act of paying-it-forward also provides "meaning-making”. Meaning-making in psychology is the active, subjective process through which individuals construe, understand, and interpret life events, relationships, and the self to create a sense of coherence, purpose, or significance. It is crucial for coping with trauma, loss, and adversity, often helping individuals adjust their worldview to integrate difficult experiences.

Beyond the home creations, we have developed partnerships with property developers to provide housing to applicants. 94% individuals served remaining stably housed after 1 year. Providing housing navigation is our staff member Fatima who also received her Home Creation. Additionally we provide supportive services to 741 total individuals annually (also by a recipient of our program, Elvira). Supplementing our services is an educational scholarship (~ 1 $m in awards) and have 120 Pay It Forward Ambassadors volunteering annually (recipients who consistently pay it forward). This video captures the life changing impact of our 160 Home Creations per year and supportive services. We are now launching our ASOH model in NY.

After 11 + years, ASOH has grown into a movement for homeless prevention. When the LA Fires struck , we launched a new Disaster Recovery Program —to create home environments for families who lost everything in the fires. What we witnessed, was many of our fellow Angelenos becoming homeless. In the first year alone we created 650 home environments. After the devastation of losing one’s home - being able to find a sense of home, is vital for restoring mental health, physical health and financial stability. The traumatic event of loss of a home causes acute stress and a profound sense of grief which leads to decreased productivity in work and school, as well as immense psychological distress, shattering one's sense of self and safety. It also includes loss of one’s own personal identity. Affording a sense of home to those who endured a nature disaster enables them to create new routines and rituals, helping them to re-establish a sense of self and the ability to resume one’s productivity in work and school.

Our evidence-based model is to create an intentional, healing home environment, custom designed for each individual family, to afford a deeply psychological positive experience that promotes resilience, mental stability, and optimal well-being. This unique volunteer powered model unites the community, turning the act of furnishing a home into a collective healing experience.The Mayo Clinic states that volunteering is a powerful, evidence-based, "anti-depressant” . The most powerful non-pharmacological approach to improving mental health, combating loneliness, and fostering a sense of purpose.When we gather with strangers and/or friends to focus on a solution and share our gifts, joy, and pain, we bear witness to our inextricable human connection as one.

Our most basic needs for survival and our most complex needs are all satisfied thanks to the place we call, home. We spend over two thirds of our lifetime at home and the average person spends the largest percentage of their income on home. 80% of our physical and mental health is determined by our home. “Our home is our health” is the central finding of several research efforts from Harvard. Researchers and health experts agree that the home environment is the most critical determinant of health, more influential than genetics, directly impacting physical and mental well-being. Home serves as the core foundational pillar which fundamentally shapes not only l health, but productivity at work and in education, personal growth, social capital, and relationships. We as a community can reveal our humanity and hope, and lift one another up, by sharing our no long needed household items, and our time by creating a loving home for another so that we can collectively become healthier.