Brenda Valiente is a nonprofit leader dedicated to the advancement of all people and transforming society into a place without poverty and homelessness. With her leadership and passion for serving the women and children of Miriam’s House, Brenda has helped expand the base of support for the organization and helped provide a safe, sober home for more than 350 families.
Today, Brenda joins the show to share the origin story of Miriam’s House as well as some of the amazing success stories she’s had the privilege of witnessing during her time there. Brenda speaks to her own experience becoming a mother, upcoming charity events and how others can help support Miriam’s House.
Key Takeaways
01:39 – Brenda Valiente joins the show to share her passion for serving the women and children of Miriam’s House and how she went from volunteer to Executive Director
05:16 – The origin story of Miriam’s House
08:32 – Brenda shares a particular success story she’s proud of during her time at Miriam’s House
13:07 – The financial needs of Miriam’s House and how listeners can help support the inspiring work they do
17:51 – Brenda reflects on recently becoming a mother
18:35 – Polo in the Palisades
22:54 – How can listeners donate to Miriam’s House
24:45 – Dr. Flowers thanks Brenda for joining today’s show and lets listeners know where they can learn more about Miriam’s House and donate
Resources Mentioned
JFlowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com/
JFlowers Health Institute Contact – (713) 783-6655
Subscribe on your favorite player: https://understanding-the-human-condition.captivate.fm/listen
Brenda’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendavaliente/
Miriam’s House – https://www.miriamshousela.org/
Miriam’s House Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/miriams.house/
Miriam’s House Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/people/Miriams-House/100005313528397/
Polo in the Palisades – https://www.miriamshousela.org/events-2-EGcoI/polo-in-the-palisades
**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests is their opinion and is not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.
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Brenda Valiente – Transforming Society, One Woman, Child, And Family At A Time [Episode 72]
Serving Women And Children
Welcome, everybody, to the show. I am so excited because I’m joined by Brenda Valiente from Miriam’s House LA in Los Angeles. Brenda is a nonprofit leader dedicated to the advancement of all people in transforming society into a place without poverty and homelessness. Brenda’s dedication to Miriam’s House since 2015 has led her from a volunteer to the executive director.
With her leadership and passion for serving the women and children in Miriam’s house, Brenda has helped expand the base of support for the organization and helped provide a safe, sober home for more than 350 families. Under her stewardship, Miriam’s House procured a 6,000-square-foot converted convent through a successful capital campaign, ensuring the sustainability of this wonderful program.
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Brenda, thank you for being here today.
Thank you for having me.
I’m super excited. I’m a huge fan of Miriam’s House. I love you guys and the work that you do. I think it’s an amazing program. First of all, let’s talk about you, your background, and how you went from volunteering to becoming executive director. That’s quite a road.
I’m happy to share it with you. I want to say everyone at Miriam’s House loves you right back. You’ve been an amazing supporter. You’re amazing. We’re so happy to honor you as well.
Thank you so much. I can’t wait to be there for that. We’ll talk about the event because we want people to donate.
They can also maybe attend. To start off, for me, service and volunteering have always been a part of my life from when I was growing up in Highland Park and being part of different organizations. At the time when I learned about Miriam’s House, I was working at the LA Chamber of Commerce. I was doing maybe 40 events a year around small businesses and communities.
I met the chairman of the board, Bryan Moeller. He mentioned this house for women who needed help doing an event. At the time, I was really looking for something outside of my 9:00 to 5:00 to volunteer and give my time to, and that rang a bell for me. He gave me a tour. I met Rhonda Evans who’s our program director and one of the original first women to ever go through the program. I fell in love.
I started volunteering every day after work. I helped them do this event that we’re honoring you at back in 2013. I was volunteering for a few months. They asked me to step in on the board. At that time, I had a lot of connections as far as Los Angeles public leadership due to being at the LA Chamber. Within the year, they asked me to step in as executive director.
That’s amazing.
I’ve been there since 2015. Coming into Miriam’s House, it is seeing this home where women can come with their children when they need help in recovery or when they have problematic substance abuse get housing per year and then get recovery services, social services, healthcare, childcare, and anything you can think of that any mom would need. This is for women specifically in recovery, and it’s all in one place. It has become part of my life mission at this point. Seeing how women’s lives change and seeing how the trajectory for the children changes is amazing.
“Visiting Miriam’s House, I see a welcoming home for women and their children needing recovery support from substance abuse. They offer housing, recovery services, social services, childcare, healthcare—everything a mom could need. It’s a vital resource for women in recovery.”
Origin Of Miriam’s House
I’ve been there at the awards ceremonies. More importantly, I’ve been there as a visitor to really understand more about what you guys do. Why don’t you tell us more about how Miriam’s House came to be?
The founders of Promises Treatment Centers, which is one of the first treatment centers in Malibu back in 1999, wanted to find a way to give back and they started the Promises Foundation. That existed as an education task force in schools to educate kids about drugs. It did that for a while. In 2007, Lisa Rogg, who was the Co-owner of Promises Treatment Centers, wanted to make something for women. As someone who was in recovery, she saw the village that it took for her to be able to take care of her kids and also change her life. She thought to herself, “There are so many women out there that don’t have the resources I have. How are they going to do it?” That’s where it started.
Patricia Meyers, who was our event chair and became our vice chairwoman, was working at Promises Treatment Centers at that time. She was there from the very beginning. She saw this 1957 convent when it was in huge disrepair. She always describes scrubbing the floors and getting them ready for the first woman to ever come in.
Eventually, Miriam’s House opened in 2007. Lisa and her husband sold Promises Treatment Centers and left the organization as well. They’re no longer involved but the program was started. Patricia stepped in as a board member. Bryan Moeller, who’s our chairman, went from being a board member to being chairman at that time. It was, for a long time, the dream of keeping this place open that they saw that helps women.
“Lisa and her husband sold Promises Treatment Centers and left, but the program continued. Patricia became a Board Member, and Bryan transitioned from Board Member to Chairman. For 15 years, they’ve worked to keep it open—a program that helps women, with none quite like it today.”
Almost fifteen years later, there are new programs like Miriam’s House. Maybe there are some sober livings that help women and some that help with children but none that give housing for a year for two years. We’re not publicly funded. We privately fundraise all the money through events like Polo but also through foundation grants. We have this huge liberty to accept any woman who needs help. We don’t have to count beds. If someone calls and tells us that there’s a woman under a bridge in LA and she’s pregnant and needs help, we can have her the next day. It gives us a lot of liberty.
Miriam’s House is very unique. Our goal is to help it grow and expand because the need outweighs what we can serve. Also, we’ve created this beautiful model that is so successful. When we talk about homelessness, problematic substance abuse, or foster care, these are all seen as separate issues. What we see at Miriam’s house is that there’s this intersection of need. It takes a place like Miriam’s House to address all of those. It’s hard to have them in silos.
Success Story
I love the word silos because I see that all the time across the country and I don’t like that. I don’t like being treated in silos myself. I don’t think we should treat our families and our patients in silos either. It should be in a community-based program like you guys. The work that you do is so amazing and good. Can you give our audience, if you can think of one, a great success story that is one of your favorites?
There are so many. I’ll say this. We have this amazing alumni base. There have been fifteen years of graduates. All of them come back to Miriam’s House. Miriam’s House is not like the institution that they went to. It’s their home. When they need help, they call Miriam’s House. If their kids are in trouble, they come to Miriam’s House. One of my favorite things is seeing the kids come back as they get older. They’re not knocking on doors. They’re running in and running around like this is their home. They’re in the playground or in the rooms.
A story I can think of is this woman who came in. At the time, she had been separated from her son. She’d been living in the streets for a long time. She’d been using on the streets as well. She had no idea she was pregnant. She went into labor in a park not knowing that she was pregnant. Thankfully, her son was born healthy and beautiful. We all loved him so much. His name was Z.
She came in. She didn’t have an education. She didn’t know what she was going to do. What I do remember is she was so grateful to have a place where she could start getting the services and figuring things out. That year that she was at Miriam’s House, she started off not having a job, not knowing what she was going to do, and not even having her son but within six months, she had custody of her son. Her son was living at Miriam’s House.
Within six months, she was already enrolled in a program. It was a tech degree. Part of allowing her to do that was on Mother’s Day every year, we do scholarships. We ask the moms to submit a proposal, a budget, and what have they been doing towards this goal. It’s a challenge. It makes them think of what to do. We gave her a scholarship and she enrolled in it. By the time she graduated, she had secured work and her own place, and her case with DCFS was closed. She’s out there making $90,000 a year. Her son is in one of the best school districts in Los Angeles. We love her and we love him. There are so many stories like that.
For me, when I came into Miriam’s House, what I saw the most was that moms are seen as these figures who have to be able to do everything and they have to have it all together. When a woman who is a mother or a caretaker needs help, it adds all this shame, stigma, and difficulty. Once DCFS gets involved and takes your children, it’s so hard. If you’re not in a place like Miriam’s House or you’re not connected to people who know how to navigate that child welfare system, it could take years to get your children back.
I’ve been in court with some of our ladies and the people who represent the state want to call for the complete removal of parental rights. The generational toll of that is too much. I don’t know how people outside of our program are doing it. For me, that’s so much motivation to keep doing what we’re doing and also hopefully expand at some point.
I don’t know how people outside of this program are doing it, and my point is not very many people are. What you guys are doing is such a gift. How many families a year or even a month do you treat and work with?
Our capacity is fifteen families. It’s a mom and up to two kids. On a case by case, we’ll do a mom and up to four kids. We have to get creative with that. Since COVID, we brought that number to twelve. We increase it as needed. If someone needs help, we’re going to figure it out. The reason for that is staffing. We’ve had COVID take us all out on more than one occasion. We figured that twelve is, from a clinical standpoint, sustainable and manageable. Once you have fifteen women, some of them in very early recovery and some of them a little older, it can be rough.
Financial Needs And Support
I’m sure you could tell some stories about that as well. We can all tell stories about that from our own treatment centers, not even just what you’re working with. The nature of living together and housing is difficult in itself. Are you at liberty to talk about the financial needs of Miriam’s House, what it takes to operate Miriam’s House, and how we can individually help an institution that is serving 12 to 15 families a month that has been there for many years and is going to be there for so many years in the future that runs on nothing other than donations, right?
That’s correct. I’m happy to talk about it. We’re a nonprofit so everything about our finances is public. I can share it. We have a tight lean budget. Our annual cost to do this is $600,000. It’s right around there with some ups and downs because of inflation and staffing. If you divide that per month, it’s less than $50,000 or something like that. That provides housing for all the families. We provide food. We provide counseling. We have childcare on site for when the women are in their meetings. We provide legal support. It provides everything.
That’s amazing. Do you have volunteer attorneys that come in and help? Is that how you provide the legal?
Part of it is that. The other part is even our staff going to these court meetings, going to these hearings, and writing letters in support being like, “This woman has been in this program. She’s been sober this many days. We have a list of days that we tested her. Not only that, we can vouch that she’s trying to change her life and she’s showing up for her children in recovery.” Our staff are all certified by the court to do visitation. We have a playroom on site. I know you’ve seen our backyard and our playground.
I love the backyard.
We love it too. There are all those safe spaces with trained staff to make sure that the moms can visit their kids. When you’re separated from your children and you’re trying to get visitation, even getting to the place where you can visit your children is a struggle. I want to share this one case where we had a woman come in when she was pregnant. She had open DCF cases with other children.
“There’s just all these safe spaces with trained staff to make sure that moms can visit their kids. When you’re separated from your children and you’re trying to get visitations, even just getting to the place where you can visit your children is a struggle.”
When her baby was born, there was a huge risk that they were going to take the baby from the hospital even if she tested negative, which is what happened. They didn’t do that, but two weeks later, child protective services came in and were like, “You cannot have your child. We have to separate you. If you don’t find a family member that will qualify, we’re going to have to put her in foster care.” She was a two-week-old. Her mom was breastfeeding her and taking care of her. Anyone who has been around someone with a baby knows how important that first year is, much less the first few weeks.
We quickly came up with a system. She did have a family member. We came up with a system where we could transport her to her family member’s home every day from a certain time to a certain time. We also have a system where we’re checking that she’s not going anywhere else. We were able to maintain that bond. Within the week, we petitioned for an emergency hearing. Within the week, she was in front of the judge. Rhonda, our program director, and myself were at this hearing. I remember the state representative was like, “I want full parental rights terminated. She is not a good person. She is not a good parent.” They were saying all these things like, “She’s using.”
We had the letters. We were like, “In this program, we’re going to provide all of these things. Also, we’re working with the courts. We don’t ever want a child to be in danger. If she were to leave, we would be the first ones to call. We’re going to give her this chance. The judge, his name was Judge Vera, said, “We’re going to give her a chance. We want this baby to be with her mom. As long as she’s at Miriam’s House, she can have custody of her baby.”
That’s amazing. How long has it been?
It has been six months since then.
That is great.
That woman is in school. She’s going to have a job interview. She’s taking care of her baby. Her case with her other daughter is that she’s getting visitation.
Can you imagine the life that you changed right there? If you hadn’t been there, the judge probably would’ve terminated the rights to this child and they would be in foster care, eventually adopted, and would have never known who his or her mother was. Congratulations.
Thank you. I also became a mom.
Becoming A Mother
Congrats.
Thank you. Part of that is like, “What would I do if they took my baby out of my hands? What if I made a mistake? What happens if I’m sick and I can’t take care of my child and they take my child? What would I do?” I would lose my mind.
Polo In The Palisades
I am stunned at what you guys are doing and the work that you’re doing. You’re right. Without you guys being there, so many families would be torn apart. Women would be on the street. That woman may still be living in the park where she was found or possibly even dead from an overdose, which you and I see all the time. You’re driven by donations and fundraising events. You said you helped found it, which is Polo in the Palisades, your annual fundraiser.
I didn’t help found it. It’s in its 15th year. The 1st time I was there was in its 11th year. I’ve been doing this for seven years. Polo in the Palisades is our biggest event of the year. It’s how we fundraise a big chunk of our annual budget. It’s a beautiful space where the treatment industry, as you’ve been so much a part of, really steps in, especially the high-end luxury treatment environment. It’s like a networking type of situation as well but all in support of Miriam’s House. Every dollar donated to Polo in the Palisades goes to Miriam’s House.
Sometimes, people come and they have no idea that it’s for Miriam’s House. They’re like, “This amazing event. We’re in the polo field. There’s a polo game.” It’s a beautiful day over at Will Rogers. It’s going to be on Sunday, September 18, 2022. We’re honoring you for your amazing work. It’s a beautiful day. We do a live auction. We do our awards ceremony. We have a silent auction. It’s beautiful and fun.
It is an amazing day. You’re right. I’ve met so many people there and networked with so many people over so many years there. Some people do come and they’re like, “What is this for?” It’s like, “This is for Miriam’s House.” They learn about Miriam’s House and then all of a sudden, they’re buying auction items. People get caught up in the silent auction and get caught up in the live auction.
I remember one year, I bought a trip to Africa, which was at the auction. I never took that trip. I was telling someone, “I cannot believe that in Polo in the Palisades a few years ago, I bought this 14-day or 28-day trip to Africa.” I still have the certificate and I never used it, which is fine because the money was so important and what it went to. That’s what it’s all about. You guys get donations for the auction from a number of sources.
You’ve also even contributed to items for our silent auction and live auction. This year, it’s probably due to your popularity and your fellow honorees. We’ve sold about 600 tickets.
That is amazing. I’m so excited. Thank you. That is so cool. Thanks for letting me know. The other honorees are amazing. I know Rick Hubbard is being honored for the lifetime work that he’s done. He’s an amazing, great friend of mine. Who else is being honored?
Dr. Joanne Barron.
I love Joanne.
We’re also honoring this organization called HavaSole. A mom in recovery and her son is the one who founded it. After having the experience of being in shelters growing up, he was older, successful, and a sneakerhead. He had a sneaker collection. He realized one day that it was better to give. He gives shoes. He came to Miriam’s House and gave all our kids shoes. That’s what he does. He goes to different transitional living shelters where there are children, takes them out, and gives them shoes.
That’s amazing. I can’t wait for the day to be there. I’m going to be there that whole week. I’m going to do a small event with Patricia Meyers that week. I’m going to speak maybe at Miriam’s House. I’m a little nervous about that.
The ladies are so nice. I promise. Especially when it’s a group led by Patricia Meyers, the women all love and trust Patricia.
That’s great.
She was the event chair, who you know very well. She is the mother of Miriam’s House. She puts in so much time and dedication. She does polo. In the 600-person event, she’s the event chair. That’s a lot. She’s there every single Thursday and leads a meeting with those ladies. She is there with them when they’re crying and there with them when they’re celebrating. I know no other woman who buys as many cakes celebrating birthdays as her. You’re going to have an amazing time. I know it for a fact.
Donating To Miriam’s House
I’m super excited about it. Unfortunately, we’re a little out of time. I want to know how people can donate to Miriam’s House. How can they look at Miriam’s House on the website? How do we make donations?
You can make a donation online at MiriamsHouseLA.org. You can make an online donation. There’s also a mailing address there where you can mail a check. You could buy a ticket to Polo and join us on that beautiful sunny day if you’re on the West side. We also have Christmas events. Also, we do take in-kind donations. There’s a gamut of things in a household that we need. There’s never too much soap. There are never too many toiletries for the ladies as well as comforter sets for when they move in. We’re in the middle of helping a graduate. She got the lease to her new apartment. We’re going to get some furniture.
“You can make a donation online at www.miriamshousela.org. You can do an online donation, but there’s also a mailing address there where you can mail a check. You can buy a ticket to Polo and join us on that beautiful sunny day if you’re on the West Side.”
Anything that you need for life is things that we can use at Miriam’s House. In-kind donations are also welcome and financial. We’re 100% privately fundraised. That means we’re applying for grants. That means we’re doing these events. Even single donations make a huge difference for us. That trip was a big purchase. It made a huge difference in what we raised.
I’ve invited so many people from around the country to come out for the event and really enjoy it. It’s my favorite event of the year. It’s always a beautiful setting. What’s more beautiful than being in Will Rogers Park for Polo in the Palisades? It draws a big crowd. It’s outside and everybody feels fantastic. I’ve invited so many people from LA.
Learn More About Miriam’s House
Everybody in our audience, please go to MiriamsHouseLA.org and make your donations. Maybe you can get out to LA on September 18, 2022, for Polo in the Palisades. You can find all the information you want at MiriamsHouseLA.org. I’m so excited that you are here. Thank you so much for your time. I know how busy you are as executive director, so thank you so much.
Thank you for having me and for allowing me to share about Miriam’s House. This has been so much fun.
Thank you. I talk to Patricia all the time but tell her I said hello and everybody else at Miriam’s House and that I can’t wait to come to the meeting.
That sounds good. I’ll do that.
I’ll see you soon. Bye. Take care.
