If
you ask Monique Harris how she came to found Southern Nevada Children First,
she’ll give you two answers. First, she’ll
tell you that her entire life has prepared her for this role. And second, she’ll tell you that when her
dream for serving others was shattered by unexpected bureaucratic fiat, she
turned that crisis over to God. He opened the door to a new way she could serve
homeless and at-risk teen-aged girls – and their babies – rescuing them in ways
she’d never even imaged were possible.
However,
she’ll also tell you that founding and leading Southern Nevada Children First was
not what she had in mind for her life – not as a child growing up on the
streets of Los Angeles, not as a single mom putting herself through college,
and not as a young and inspired social worker looking to create a completely
different way of helping people.
What she won’t tell you is that, while this was never what she imagined for her life’s work, she can’t imagine a more fulfilling path for herself, and for the hundreds of young girls – and their babies – who she’s already helped.
Monique
Harris has an Associate’s Degree, a Bachelor’s Degree and a Masters of Social
Work Degree. Educationally, she has all
the qualifications that a person in her position is expected to have. However, few people realize that she was well
into her adulthood – and that she was a single mother supporting herself and
her two children – before she put her mind into earning those degrees and
changing her life.
She
grew up hard in the tough inner-city LA neighborhood of Inglewood. However, she had two benefits many girls from
her neighborhood never had. First, she grew up in a two-parent home – though
her father was sometimes in jail – and after 61 years, her parents are still
married. But Monique also had another
gift – a mother who was grounded in God’s Word, a woman of steadfast faith who
did all she could to set Monique on the right path. For more than a decade, her mother might have
despaired that her efforts were “seeds that fell on rocky ground,” but in the
end, it turned out that Monique had listened to her mother, deep in her soul
where it really mattered.
Growing up, her father was very “street-oriented,” and while he did his best to shelter his wife and daughter from that life, Monique’s brothers were more or less brought into the “family business,” the in-the-streets way of life. As a teen-ager, though she did finish high school, Monique decided that her father’s and brother’s lifestyle was more exciting than her mother’s. She got involved in a fast life, on the streets in the wrong neighborhood. To her credit, she tried college, but it didn’t take. She preferred street life, which included hanging out with guy who was to become her husband. It also included all the excitement and drama of being a “baby momma.”
She
didn’t wait long for that last thrill. By
19, she was pregnant, and by 20, she was a new bride. But her life as a wife and mother didn’t turn
out like a Walt Disney fairytale, and she’s still frustrated that it was only
after she got married that she learned her husband was addicted to cocaine. It took her years of marriage to finally
conclude that his love for cocaine outweighed his love for his wife or his
children. That was a bitter pill to
swallow.
Her second child, a daughter who only recently turned 15, was born when Monique was 25. However, just a year later, after more than six years of trying to turn her husband around, she separated from him to protect her children, and herself. Though separated, Monique and her husband stayed married for another five years, while she continued to try to turn him around. All during that time, she was a single mother, responsible for her kids, her mortgage note and her future.
With
her husband gone, that future was suddenly very important to her. She went back to college on her own dime, working
two jobs and “doing hair” on the weekends to help make ends meet. Against formidable odds, she finished her Associate
degree in child development and her Bachelor’s degree in youth social work. Then
she decided – with the final end of her marriage – that she needed a new
perspective. She sold her house in LA,
moved to Las Vegas, and here she earned her Master’s Degree in Social Work –
her MSW.
While
still in college, Monique began working with homeless teens. She was quickly
surprised to learn that most of these kids were not rebellious young punks
who’d run away from home. Instead, they
were victims – usually of their own parents – parents who, in most cases, had actually
driven their daughters out of the house and onto the streets.
While
working on her Masters, Monique first ran into a population of girls – pregnant
and parenting teen agers – who, because of fears of liability issues, nobody seemed
to want to help. With no one to help
them, these victims remained on the streets, the prey of drug dealers, pimps,
human traffickers and sexual slavers.
Las Vegas – where “everything has a price” and where “what happens in
Vegas stays in Vegas” – was and remains a hotbed for the abuse of homeless teen-aged
girls.
Monique couldn’t get those “babies having babies” out of her mind. They were too close in experience to her own life, and her compassion for them was only matched by her understanding of the huge odds they faced.
Looking
back on that, and considering what she does now, Monique sees their risk
without blinders.
“On any given day in Clark
County Nevada, there are more than 300 unaccompanied homeless kids,” she
explained. “Many of these victims are pregnant,
or are already parenting their own babies.
Homeless, without someone to guide them, care for them or provide for
them, they are extremely venerable to the lure of drugs and alcohol to numb
their pain. They are also forced to participate in survival sex and
prostitution, just to provide shelter, food and protection for themselves and
their babies. Many just choose to hide
their situation from others, hoping it will go away.”
As she completed her MA, she saw this situation for what it is – not in the depth of understanding she has today, but she saw it clearly enough to know that she wanted to do something to make a difference in these at-risk young girls’ lives.
As she completed her MA, she saw this situation for what it is – not in the depth of understanding she has today, but she saw it clearly enough to know that she wanted to do something to make a difference in these at-risk young girls’ lives.
Her
career path, following her MA, was drawn toward helping at-risk populations,
though not specifically young girls.
This changed when she connected with another lady in the community, who
was conducting a pilot program to pull at least a couple of kids’ lives
together, starting by giving them a place to live.
With
her strong academic bent, and with her remarkable organizational skills, Monique
was more about policies and procedures than about hands-on helping these
kids. As she helped her new friend, he’d
already decided on her life’s work – creating and managing a Foster Care agency
focused on troubled teens.
All
she needed was Clark County’s certification of her Foster Care agency, and
she’d be ready to go.
While
she waited on Clark County, she began helping her new friend, who was all about
helping at-risk kids. However, she had little money and no useful organizational
skills. What she did have was a house
that she shared with several at-risk girls, where she served as a kind of “den
mother” or “big sister” to the girls she was helping. Soon she and Monique realized
that each complemented the other. Together, they set out to help at least some
of these kids. Monique turned to
fund-raising and organizational management, while her partner focused on actually
hands-on helping these at-risk kids.
After
three months, thanks to Monique’s fund-raising skills, they had three houses
filled with girls, and their babies. But
at that point, with no warning, Monique’s partner bailed. The pressures just became too much for
her. She just up and moved back to wherever
it was that she came from, abandoning the kids and leaving Monique with all the
bills, but with no program. She also left Monique with three houses filled with
girls and their babies.
Doing
her best to network for solutions, Monique quickly placed all but three girls
with other appropriate housing.
Then,
her compassion trumping any potential liability issues, she took those three still-homeless
girls into her home – a home that already housed her own two children. It was a big risk in many ways, but it
worked.
Remarkably,
one of these three girls remembered her new savior, from a time when Monique
had worked for a service agency. This
girl was a mother at sixteen – her baby’s father was her own mother’s
boyfriend. While her mom took her baby
to raise, she kicked her own daughter out.
Living
on the streets, this girl was forced into prostitution. Then – having already
been an unwed mother and a street-walker, she’d been kicked back onto the
streets by her pimp because her feet bled so badly that she could no longer
“walk the street.”
Desperate,
that scared little girl – who should have been worrying about prom dresses
instead of survival – had gone to a “Safe Place” business location. Then,
because it was part of her job at that time, Monique was called in. She “rescued” that girl from the Safe Place and
brought her to sheltered place to live during that moment of crisis.
While
Monique hadn’t remembered this particular girl, this girl remembered her “Angel.”
Three
weeks after taking these girls into her home, Monique got the letter she’d been
waiting for. However, instead of
approving her Foster Care agency, Clark County had turned down her request. They said she could be a Foster Care mom, but
despite her training and organizational skills, she could not run a new Foster
Care organization. This was a stunning,
callous reversal that shattered her dreams and destroyed the life-plans she’d so
carefully crafted.
Devastated,
and after a week of unimaginable turmoil, Monique turned this situation over to
God.
“You
don’t want me to follow this path,” she told God, “but you want me to do
something else.”
Trusting
that her answer would come, Monique took a frightening leap of faith – she put
her entire $10,000 retirement fund into a bank account, waiting on God to show
her where to put it to work helping others.
The
rest, as they say, is history.
Starting
in 2007 with her $10,000 retirement fund as seed money, Monique Harris built an
organization to rescue homeless young girls and their babies that, in 2013, was
funded at the $1.5 million dollar level.
Because of Nevada’s 2001 “Right to
Shelter Law,” the state helped to fund services to homeless kids – and
their babies, providing some foundational funding. However, it took all of
Monique’s skills and determination to seek out additional funding – not easy
for a new non-profit, especially during the worst economic collapse since the
Great Depression, but she managed.
“I
know why God led me in this direction,” she explains. “The household environment I grew up in. My father was in and out of jail, and
currently, he’s on probation – in all those years, he still hasn’t turned his
life around. We lived in a world of
drugs, violence, and sexual abuse, and while he tried to protect me, the siren
song of the street was too strong, at least at first.
“With him as my role model, I grew up hard on the streets. I’ve been there, and I know what life on the streets can be life. This is why I understand the girls – I have lived the life they do now. The only difference between me and the girls my organization rescues is that in my home, I had a support system – my mother.
“A
strong woman with a strong faith, she’s grounded in the Word, and has lived her
life with a strong relationship with God.
As a child, she had been abused and neglected, and as she grew up, she
swore she’d never do that to her kids.
That commitment is what saved me from a path with no good ending.
“My mother’s love and example helped me to develop a nurturing spirit. I know the value of a support system, and that’s why I created Southern Nevada Children First.”
The Facts and Stats
Monique
Harris holds a Bachelor of Arts
degree in Social Work, focusing on the Non-Profit Sector, as well as a Master’s
Degree in Social Work (MSW). She also holds several professional certifications,
including:
· Youth Agency Administration
· Model Approaches to Partnership and Parenting
· Parent Resources for
Information Development and Education
For
more than 17 years, she has worked for organizations, in many roles, but all
providing services to underserved and disadvantaged populations. She continues to work closely with Children
and Family Services, acting as a Foster Parent, a Child and Family Advocate,
and a Community Liaison.
Her
professional experiences also included providing wraparound services, case
management, community outreach and mentoring.