Laura Nicole Diamond

Shelter Us highlights one family’s predicament of homelessness. I hoped to create relatable figures to humanize the crisis and challenge assumptions about who can become homeless.

The agencies below help people lift themselves back to stability. Together we can make a difference.

Housing & Homelessness

PATH / Beyond Shelter
Helps homeless individuals and families achieve economic security and well-being through intensive case management, job training, and housing assistance.

Covenant House
Each year in the U.S. alone, up to 2 million youth experience homelessness — and more than 5,000 of these young people die on the streets. Covenant House helps them escape the streets and find hope.

Kiva.org
Kiva combats global poverty by offering small loans to people around the world — from Kenyan farmers to Bolivian nursing students — enabling them to improve their own lives.

Grief Support

Grief and bereavement — particularly after the loss of a child — are also major themes in Shelter Us. The following organizations offer healing and support:

GriefHaven
A compassionate community offering counseling and resources for families who have lost a child. Founder Susan Whitaker generously reviewed the Shelter Us manuscript to ensure its authenticity and emotional depth.

Return to Zero Center for Healing
Provides support for parents grieving the death of a baby, including stillbirth, through outreach, education, research, and restorative retreats.

Immigration

My forthcoming memoir explores the circumstances that led me to welcome a teenage girl from Guatemala into our family, and the impact that decision had on all our lives.

These agencies help immigrants, individually and collectively, as they seek to build new lives in the U.S., and are worthy of your support:

Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project

Esperanza is public interest legal organization serving some of the most vulnerable immigrants in the Los Angeles area, and trained me to take my first pro bono asylum case.

National Immigrant Rights Project

This agency defends the rights of immigrants through litigation, in educational campaigns, and through narrative storytelling.

American Friends Service Committee and HIAS

Faith-based groups like these live their values in their campaigns to help immigrants and refugees worldwide.