L.C. and Lillie Cox Haven of Hope

L.C. and Lillie Cox Haven of Hope (Haven of Hope) is a San Francisco Bay Area-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to provide equitable, trauma-responsive systems of support for society's most marginalized individuals. Haven of Hope is led by Dr. Darcelle Lahr, who carries a deep personal and scholarly commitment to transitional and restorative justice.

Haven of Hope's work centers people experiencing economic precarity and racial and gender-based injustice, individuals living with disabilities, and others who are multiply marginalized by existing social systems and institutions. Our entire program is built on the tenets of Transformative Social Innovation, where we are leading efforts to change what’s considered “normal” in our society. Through our programs, we are creating new societal systems and institutions that are grounded in human dignity and equitable access, and that uphold the equal worth of every person.

Life-Long Learning. First, we are leading the shift away from the normalized assumptions that so often define and limit the opportunities for those we work with. This means conducting restorative research and widely sharing the knowledge that we are gaining about the unique life needs of the populations we serve, along with developing and delivering programs of lifelong learning tailored to address those unique life needs.

Community Healing and Restoration. Secondly, we provide wrap-around support services dedicated to addressing those unique life needs; meaning, recognizing that the individuals we work with are whole human beings who deserve to be able to share their whole selves – safely, and in community with others.

We accomplish this work through our Affirmation Centers – sharing in community, grounding, and healing. Our newest center is the Disability Cultural Center in San Francisco, providing a gathering space for diverse individuals living with disabilities to access resources; advance social justice; and foster disability culture, community, and pride. Our Women’s Social Entrepreneurship Center was founded in 2018 in Oakland, to support systems-traumatized women and non-binary individuals in healing and regaining agency, while building their own social ventures.

Economic Mobility. Third, in our efforts to promote anti-displacement and cultural preservation, we are building a pathway for economic stability for our participants. What we are building is a counter-point system that deliberately creates an alternative process, built on equity – for, and by, those who have been historically excluded and subjugated.  Rather than simply repeating the incremental approach that has been used in the past, we are instead building on that work by creating a new social “status quo”. One that’s normalized and automatically reproduced, and that centers and empowers people and communities who have been most minoritized under our society’s existing systems.

Transformative, Cooperative Economics. This work has culminated in our purposeful development of a non-extractive, regenerative, multi-stakeholder business community that not only prioritizes hiring marginalized and underestimated individuals, but that also supports these individuals if they themselves wish to build their own workplaces of welcome for others. Our belief is that rather than leaving our participants to simply survive within existing exclusionary, discriminatory and extractive social systems, we have the ability to instead create a new, counter-point, equity-based, self-reinforcing community, in which all members of the community are working together to advance social transformation.

This is our vision. We invite you to join us.