EP 49 / When the Shelter Is Full: Spotlight on Families to Freedom

Interviews

Sep 15

SHOW NOTES

What happens when a victim of abuse finally makes the call, gets accepted into a shelter, and then can’t get there?

Sarah Nejdl asked herself that question in 2014. She was working a corporate job in technology and currency trading, scrolling social media one night, when she landed on a national survey showing that more than 14,000 victims were turned away from emergency shelters on a single day because the shelters were full. In Texas alone, that number was more than 1,000 unmet requests in one day.

Sarah is not a survivor herself. She’s a Texan, a pilot, and, in her words, a Virgo who doesn’t respond well to “you can’t.” So when an FAA examiner told her she couldn’t fly victims to safety unless it was on behalf of a nonprofit, she walked outside, called a friend who is now her board chair, and started one. She took a layoff package, spent six months telling anyone who would listen about the gap she’d found, and opened services in October 2015, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, on purpose.

Families to Freedom does one specific thing that nobody else in Texas was doing: it gives victims of domestic abuse, family violence, sexual assault, stalking, and trafficking a free, confidential ride to safety. Sometimes that’s across town to a shelter. Sometimes it’s a five-day drive to a sister’s house on the other side of the country. About half of the adults they transport have children with them, and they transport pets too, because leaving a pet behind is a real barrier to leaving at all.

In this episode of Nonprofit Nook, Sarah and Eric join Wendy to share how the organization works, who it serves, and how a volunteer model built on “choose your own adventure” road trips keeps drivers coming back. Eric, known around North Texas as the Connector, found Families to Freedom through his own family’s wake-up call and now spends his days building the partnerships and volunteer base the mission runs on.

The two of them are also clear about measurement. Families to Freedom publishes its metrics on its website in real time: how many people were transported, how many children, how many pets, and exactly what was spent on bus tickets, flights, fuel cards, and hotels. And Eric points to one number that matters most: the Texas Council on Family Violence publishes an annual report of Texans killed by intimate partners, and none of Families to Freedom’s clients have ever been on that list.

Beyond the logistics, this is a conversation about paying attention to the problem in front of you instead of looking away, about founders who build with their eventual successor in mind, and about what it means to treat a scared kid in the back seat like this is just a normal ride.

If you lead, volunteer with, support, or dream of starting a nonprofit, this conversation is a reminder that the most valuable thing you can build is the one nobody else is building.

In This Episode

You’ll hear Wendy, Sarah, and Eric talk about:

How a single statistic about full shelters turned into a nonprofit that transports victims across the country
Why Sarah opened services in October 2015, and how she raised the money to do it in six months
What “far, far away” means, and why Families to Freedom won’t drive someone across town to a relative’s house
Who qualifies for a ride, including men, fathers with children, elder abuse victims, and people leaving from homes with cameras on every door
How the volunteer driver model works, from ten-minute rides to five-day trips with hotels, meals, and mileage covered
Why Families to Freedom publishes its spending and impact numbers on its website in real time
The one report Eric checks to prove transportation saves lives
What Sarah wishes more people understood about victims, survivors, and running a nonprofit for a decade