Rather than hitting the beach for spring break in college, Brandi Tuck reluctantly joined a service trip, volunteering at a homeless shelter. A little boy there asked her to stay, and in that moment she found her calling. In 2008, she started a nonprofit now known as Path Home, that has provided shelter, services, and support to more than 10,000 parents and children in Portland, Oregon. Today, her group has a beautiful new shelter designed to help people heal from the trauma of homelessness and find permanent housing.

Path Home is a shelter and transitional housing village in the Lents neighborhood. It was designed to be green and energy efficient.

Brandi Tuck is the founding Executive Director of Portland Homeless Family Solutions (PHFS), whose mission is to empower homeless families with children to get back into housing and stay there. Since 2007, Brandi has led PHFS' efforts to expand and improve their services in the community - increasing from a $78,000 budget and serving 125 kids and parents in 2007 to an over $3mil budget and helping over 1,100 kids and parents end their homelessness in 2019. Under Brandi's leadership, PHFS has been recognized by the Oregon Business Journal as one of Oregon's Top 100 Nonprofits to Work For every year since 2011. With over 15 years working with people experiencing homelessness, Brandi has become passionate about trauma informed care - the idea that we can help people better if we understand what's going on in the brain when someone experiences something as stressful as homelessness. PHFS is proud to open the first shelter in Oregon designed using trauma informed design and architecture. Brandi Tuck is the founding Executive Director of Portland Homeless Family Solutions (PHFS), whose mission is to empower homeless families with children to get back into housing and stay there. Since 2007, Brandi has led PHFS' efforts to expand and improve their services in the community - increasing from a $78,000 budget and serving 125 kids and parents in 2007 to an over $3mil budget and helping over 1,100 kids and parents end their homelessness in 2019. Under Brandi's leadership, PHFS has been recognized by the Oregon Business Journal as one of Oregon's Top 100 Nonprofits to Work For every year since 2011.

With over 15 years working with people experiencing homelessness, Brandi has become passionate about trauma informed care - the idea that we can help people better if we understand what's going on in the brain when someone experiences something as stressful as homelessness. PHFS is proud to open the first shelter in Oregon designed using trauma informed design and architecture. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx