There was no single rock bottom for Kenzie High. Just a seemingly never-ending series of them.
The Lake County native had been homeless. Friendless. Gripped by drug and alcohol addiction. Abused by her partner. Disconnected from family. In one disturbing incident, she was attacked by a baseball-bat wielding street person.
The thing about rock bottom, it can always go deeper.
For Kenzie, still seized by addiction, that meant being unable to care for her children—her older three went to live with their fathers, while the youngest was eventually adopted by his grandmother.
Kenzie High’s rock bottom wasn’t a turning point, but a lifestyle.
Which makes where she is today all the more miraculous.
A decade later, Kenzie is celebrating 10 years sober. She’s a valued leader with Santa Rosa-based homeless-services nonprofit Redwood Gospel Missions—and was recently named director of its shelter and recovery ministry. She’s living proof that a path to recovery not only exists—but, through the help of nonprofits like RGM, can lead to opportunity, meaning and a chance to thrive.
“We have a strong group of volunteers [and staff] that really love on our guests,” Kenzie says about the nonprofit’s work with those seeking help.
“Their lives can be transformed.”
A new life
For the past eight years, Kenzie, 47, has managed Redwood Gospel Missions’ women’s shelter, known affectionately as “the Rose.” In her work, Kenzie exemplifies what the best staff and volunteers at RGM bring to the table: Understanding not judgment; empathy more than sympathy; lived experience over distant observation.
“I was helping women that had gone through the same thing as me,” she says about her work at the Rose. “I could empathize and connect, and mostly I just really had a soft spot for them.”
“They were loved and encouraged and their needs met in more ways than just survival.”
Redwood Gospel Missions is a nondenominational, faith-based organization headquartered in Santa Rosa with a simple directive: To mobilize the community in service of the needy. RGM offers myriad initiatives: homeless services, recovery programs, vocational training, jail ministries, outreach events and operates thrift stores in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park.
The good news: Homelessness in Sonoma County is seemingly on the decline. According to the annual single-day point-in-time homeless count last Jan. 31, a total of 1,952 people were living unhoused throughout the county—a decline of 570 from the previous year’s count. The biggest progress was a reduction in homeless veterans—down 39% since 2024.
But homeless advocates worry that progress may be unsustainable—as state and federal pandemic-era funding for homeless services dries up, while cities and counties realign their budgets to fit the new reality. The Santa Rosa City Council in May proposed $1.4 million in cuts to homeless programs, while the county this year announced nearly $1.9 million in cuts to homeless services. And despite the reduction in overall homelessness, a pair of startling setbacks were reported in the point-in-time count: The number of chronically homeless increased by 20% and the number of homeless families jumped by 37%.
And those statistics could render a major expansion by RGM as both critical and timely.
A Dream for expansion
Redwood Gospel Missions has been a staple in the community for decades—it launched as a 14-bed shelter in 1963—but has made headlines this year through its $10 million donor-driven purchase of the Finley Dream Center, a 7.4 acre property at 2447 Summerfield Road in Santa Rosa.
The center had served since 2016 as a shelter and headquarters for Sonoma Advocates for Youth (SAY) until that youth-services nonprofit went insolvent and shut down in 2024. While RGM will pick up the mantle for youth advocacy from SAY, its mission is broader—its West College Avenue shelter facility, aka the Rose, has provided 40 beds for women and their families (the Rose is planned to relocate to the Dream Center) and at its guest-services shelter in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square, RGM offers 80 beds and provides meals to mostly single adult men.
During the cold months, RGM operates a nightly “winter shelter” for the unhoused at a rotating network of participating churches.
And, while the number of homeless youth fell this year by 24%, according to the count, that could be due to undercounting in the wake of the demise of Sonoma Advocates for Youth.
Redwood Gospel Missions always has an eye out for better ways to serve those in need. But challenges are a constant, especially for a nonprofit like Redwood Gospel Missions, which is 100% donation-based, relying on zero government funding.
By owning and occupying the former SAY property, RGM has an opportunity to make an impact like never before. The Summerfield Road parcel includes a 50,000-square-foot main building and a handful of smaller side buildings. (The site used to house a hospital, until Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation donated the property to SAY a decade ago.) The former Dream Center is transitioning to become RGM’s Family Campus, a 51-bed transitional residential program dedicated to supporting single parents and their children. (As the program expands, intact families will be welcomed.)
Kenzie can’t stress enough the importance of expanding family services in breaking the cycles of homelessness and instability. “If the family is in breakdown, the family is in breakdown—not just mom or dad,” she says. “We want the kids to heal alongside them and be ministered alongside them and grow as a family.”
The program structure at the Family Campus includes daily life-skills training and therapy, followed by work therapy and personal development, with evenings dedicated to family time and structured free time. Residents must also commit to behavioral guidelines, curfews and program participation. A zero-tolerance policy for drugs and alcohol is strictly enforced.
Mobilizing the community
While the new Family Campus represents exciting opportunities for RGM to expand services, it’s also a reminder of the critical role volunteers play in the organization. At any given time, RGM might have 200 or 300 volunteers actively serving the needy, estimates Eric Sangervasi, director of partner and community ministries. Among the several initiatives his team overseas— fundraising, marketing, media, outreach events, and more—is coordinating its vast network of volunteers.
As Sangervasi points out, the organization’s mission statement is to “mobilize our community to minister to the needy so that lives are transformed.” Boiling it down, “It means we are a platform to the community to live out their ministry to the poor and needy,” he says.
“Redwood Gospel Missions does not need volunteers,” he stresses. “The guests in the programs we serve—they need volunteers.”
Sangervasi says RGM operates on the philosophy that homelessness is less about a lack of housing and more about a lack of relationships. Homelessness, he points out, is often rooted in the loss of family, a job, or a spouse or partner. “If relationships are at the core,” he says, “then we want to be about opportunities for relationships.” To that end, volunteering for RGM is as much about lending a hand in service, as it is extending a hand in friendship.
“Sometimes it’s all about showing up and saying hello and looking them in the eye and treating them like a human—asking their name and then remembering their name the next time you see them,” says Sangervasi. “If you treat someone with dignity and respect, they’ll start [conducting themselves] with dignity and respect.”
Likewise, Sangervasi aims to make RGM equally welcoming to those interested in volunteering—even if they’ve never volunteered before. “Helping those in need can be well intentioned, but very scary,” he says. And starting one’s volunteering journey with an established organization like Redwood Gospel Missions can ensure a positive outcome for both the volunteer and those served. “There are wonderful people doing things on their own, but there are also those who may not know how to serve others in an entirely healthy way,” he cautions. RGM, he says, is a platform to equip the people in the community to help the people in the community.”
Sangervasi often hears interested volunteers discount themself because they feel they haven’t anything to give. Rest assured, he says, “[everyone] has so much to offer.”
Best of all, RGM has so many volunteering needs, pretty much anyone can find a niche. From shelter volunteers, food servers, class facilitators and thrift-store assistants to gardeners, handymen, drivers and haircutters—Sangervasi’s team will find a meaningful role for whomever wants one.
In fact, it was through experiencing the efforts of RGM volunteers that brought Kenzie to the organization years ago. When she was still pulling her life together, Kenzie attended one of RGM’s Thanksgiving banquets held annually at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds and was “bowled over” by the efforts of the nearly 400 volunteers to serve turkey and fixings to more than 5,000 guests. “It wasn’t what you’d picture as a typical [meal for the needy],” she says. “They were serving us like we were at a restaurant.
“I thought—I’ve got to do this someday.”
When she felt she was far enough along in her recovery to begin helping others, “the first place I went was RGM.”
Kenzie marks her 10th anniversary sober this September.
Don’t wait—seek help now
Kenzie believes the most important thing anyone facing homelessness, abuse or dependency can do is to seek help immediately. Looking back on her self-described “decade on the streets,” she has a list of regrets, but the final one is in not having gotten help sooner. “I wish I hadn’t waited,” she says. “I wish I’d done it then, instead of running.”
If she could go back in time and speak to her younger, reckless self, she would implore her to seek out a place like Redwood Gospel Missions immediately.
“I would say: You won’t believe what’s coming. There’s a whole team of people who are going to surround you and love you, and it’s going to be OK.
“I never pictured I would have all these friends and this community—and that was going to carry me through all the scary hard stuff.”
Adds Kenzie “It carried me through the hard stuff. But it was hard to imagine that, back then.”
Since her recovery, Kenzie’s three older children have had “a constant place” in her life. “The restoration of relationships with my family has been a driving force in my commitment to transformation,” she says.
Kenzie reconnected with her youngest son and the grandma who adopted him in 2020—they’ve reunited once in person and she has spoken with him by phone several times.
She has faith that “through the grace and mercy of God,” that will grow into the kind of relationship she hopes to have with him one day.
Thanks to Redwood Gospel Missions and a supportive community, Kenzie’s view to rock bottom is 10 years gone. But the climb continues.
Learn more about Redwood Gospel Missions at rgm.org.
Pay It Forward: How to Volunteer
Redwood Gospel Mission’s success is dependent upon its talented and hard-working network of volunteers. For those looking to make a positive impact on their community, contact Tina Karns at volunteer@rgm.org.
Here are a few of the opportunities for which RGM has a need:
- Men’s Guest Services: TSP coach, clothing room attendant, guest locker attendant, chapel audio/visual, chapel greeter, chapel service setup/tear down, front desk contact, intake, driver
- New Life Family Campus: devotion facilitator, intake, dinner service, landscape/gardening, driver
- Men’s New Life Program: Teacher/class facilitator, substitute teacher, coach, driver
- Women’s New Life Program at Manna Home: Teacher/class facilitator, devotion facilitator, coach, driver
- Outreach Ministries: Nomadic shelter, shower ministry, search and rescue, jail ministry, prayer ministry, outreach events, hair cutter, foot washing lead, event and pre-event assistance
- Thrift Store in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park: Thrift store assistant, electronics tester (Santa Rosa only), back door donations receiver
- Food Services: Food/meal preparation, breakfast cook, breakfast service, dinner service, food donation pick-up, coffee cart
- Operations: Facility steward assistance, landscaping/gardening, handyman services, painter
- Administration: Administrative assistance, partner connect phone call ministry
Critical services
RGM offers several programs for both men and women. Here are a few of its key initiatives:
Men’s Guest Services
An emergency shelter for men experiencing homelessness. Additionally, there is a Transitional Savings Program, where guests can remain for six months to save money while they put their lives back together and form a plan to transition out of homelessness. Contact 707-542-4817.
Men’s New Life Program
A 12- to 16-month faith-based residential program for men with life-controlling issues who wish to put their issues behind them and start a new life.
Women’s New Life Program at the Family Campus
A 12- to 16-month faith-based residential program for women with life-controlling issues who wish to put their issues behind them and start a new life.
Family Campus
The Family Campus is a transitional residential program dedicated to supporting single parents and their children. As the program expands, intact families will also be welcomed.
Mobile Ministries
Mobile Ministries includes: Nomadic Shelter, search and rescue efforts and Mobile Shower.
Jail Ministries
The Redwood Gospel Mission has men’s and women’s jail ministries teams that are authorized to go into the county jail and facilitate chapel services, bible studies and one-on-one biblical support. The teams can also provide preliminary interviews for inmates looking to be released into the New Life Programs. Contact 707-542-4817.
