Meet The Board: Lisa Leitner
For many, a shelter opening down the street from your home might be a cause for concern. But for Lisa Leitner, a former Bellevue, WA resident and current New Directions’ Board Member, it was an opportunity.
Lisa spent her career as an HR professional specializing in compensation and benefits. A break in her work life to care for her ill father-in-law, led her on a journey that would change her career path.
“After my father-in-law passed, I was deciding what I wanted to do… With the opening of the men’s shelter in Seattle at the end of my street, I decided to take the opportunity to see how the shelter operated and to get involved, to understand the clientele, and what homelessness means in that community.”
Lisa started as a weekly volunteer, preparing lunch Congregations for the Homeless (CFH). They are responsible for the men’s homelessness programs in Bellevue, including a 100-bed shelter. (CFH is now known as Porchlight). Within 6 months of volunteering, she found herself taking on a part-time community engagement role. Five weeks later, COVID arrived. Her role quickly turned into a full-time job. Navigating an epidemic for a population that could not isolate was not an experience anyone could tap from. “It was an ‘all hands-on deck’ approach, especially in the Pacific Northwest. One of the first known cases of COVID was in the Seattle area, so it was taken very seriously. When I began full-time, there were only about five of us working in person alongside the direct shelter support staff. I took on a COVID response manager role whilst still fulfilling the community engagement responsibilities and had to tap into my past HR experience as well. I wore a lot of hats, a typical non-profit job. It was an incredible experience but it came time to retire. After a year-and-a half I had my last day of employment in October 2021. I had a great time there and learned a lot about the non-profit world. I feel anytime you are involved with a non-profit, you will always be learning- whether you're a volunteer, staff, or a board member.”
Not all in her community had the same approach to the new shelter. Those holding an often prevalent “Not-In-My-Back-Yard” attitude (commonly known as “NIMBY”) were initially resistant to a homeless shelter opening down the street.
But rather than taking a headstrong approach to establishing the case for a new shelter, Lisa guided the CFH team to lean into their values - “to seek first to understand”.
“I was concerned when folks in the community immediately shut it down without understanding. ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood’ (Steven Covey’s principle in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) is a very important guidepost for me. Many residents didn’t want to take the time to do this, but that wasn’t my approach. CFH got the community involved, formed a community advisory group, and after almost 4 years of existence, continues to meet today. I feel like that group is my legacy. The new shelter opened its doors earlier this year, assisting 100 men as they face their challenges and community engagement is still a high priority for the agency.”
That on-going process is a familiar one for New Directions; the process of understanding the wants and needs of those that our work involves and impacts - local municipalities and governments (in particular, the City of Myrtle Beach and Horry County), residents of the Grand Strand, local businesses, churches, civic organizations, and most of all - those we serve. New Directions began with an effort in 2013 that “sought to understand” and ever since, we have been in the continual process of “seeking to understand”; to understand all the unique ways that homelessness, poverty, and addiction present themselves, to understand their myriad of causes, to understand who is impacted, and most of all, to understand how together, we can help people resolve these crises. “It’s never going to be easy serving the population that is in shelters. You deal with so many issues that it’s hard for many in the general population to understand that until they come and peek inside then hopefully develop some compassion for a group that they never really thought of other than negatively. There’s a stigma around it and others often don’t realize that it could be their son, their brother, their nephew inside the shelter.”
After she and her husband retired and relocated to Myrtle Beach, Lisa quickly sought to volunteer in a similar setting to that of Congregations for the Homeless and found that similar setting at New Directions. “It so happened that some of my neighbors were having an open house to recruit new kitchen volunteers. I thought it was the universe saying “We think we found you a new home”. After the meeting, I was introduced to Mike (Janczak, New Directions’ Kitchen Coordinator) and started volunteering in January of this year. Not long after starting, I went from one day per week to two days per week and then was introduced to Kathy Jenkins, CEO. We chatted about my background and my passion for this work. Not long afterwards she asked if I would be interested in being a board member and I said absolutely.”
Through her decades long career in Human Resources and her previous roles at CFH, Lisa not only brings extensive experience to our Board of Directors, but also, a fresh perspective. “Being new to Myrtle Beach, I’m hoping to bring a different lens to the Board since I don’t know the area like the other members. My HR background brings a unique perspective and I hope to bring community engagement to the table, drawing on my experience in Bellevue.” Succinctly, that perspective is to “put your listening ears on as the community asks questions. Don’t go into meetings thinking you are going to be doing all the talking - you need to do less talking and more listening. However, the one question we should always be asking is “If New Directions didn’t exist where would these people go? You must be out there to help the community navigate this complex conversation.”
Known affectionately in our Men’s Shelter Kitchen as “the leftover queen”, besides making a delicious meal out of practically anything, interacting with clients is what Lisa enjoys the most about her service at New Directions. “Working with the men has a personal connection for me. My brother died when he was 24 years old, after battling substance abuse issue after a car accident at the age of 16. Between stints in jail and trying to sober up, he would couch surf or sleep on the beach where we grew up in South Florida. Technically he was homeless. I think of him every day I’m onsite at New Directions. This is one way to honor his memory.”
Her personal connection and past vocational experience, provides an enlightening perspective on the stigma surrounding homeless men; “Women and families are allowed to be vulnerable, but there’s a stigma that men must be the strong ones in society, and we don’t give men permission to fail… There’s got to be a place to help men with nowhere else to go, get back on their feet and start feel good about themselves… I like being in the kitchen, serving lunch, putting a smile on their face, telling them to have a good day. When you see the success stories it just feels so good, knowing that it takes a lot of courage for these men and women to walk in the door and ask for help.”
A smiling face, a listening ear, and a desire to seek first to understand, are just some of the qualities that Lisa brings to our organization through her board service and volunteerism. New to both the community and to our organization, for Lisa, the future is not just an expansion of our facilities, but of our perspective.
“As a Myrtle Beach community, there needs to be broader conversations about what it means to be homeless… There is so much fear around homelessness so it’s important to bring the community along in conversations. This is a community wide challenge so more dialogue and engagement with the greater community is an important goal. Working towards the new women’s shelter is another critical goal.”
According to Lisa, New Directions’ success comes down to staff, clients, and culture: “Experienced staff holding themselves and the clients accountable, the respect that clients show to the volunteers and to each other, and lastly a culture that thrives on clients success are what keep people wanting to continue to serve. New clients feel no judgment as they enter our doors. Each client has a unique story and part of their journey is to seek courage and ask for help, and here they are asked an important question… ‘What do you need?’”
With her help and guidance as a member of our Board of Directors, we hope to further our efforts to both seek to understand and to be understood, and to continue to ask those we serve that most important question: “what do you need?”