Ten years of TenderLove and hope

TenderLove Community Center has come a long way since it opened its doors 10 years ago.

What started as an operation offering one sewing class in a back room at Highland High School in Southeast Albuquerque has turned into a fully operational nonprofit that offers a suite of free services to its clients to energize and inspire vulnerable people to lead stable, self-supporting lives.

For the center’s owner and CEO Debbie Johnson, the last 10 years of TenderLove were just part of her life’s journey that led her to this moment.

Johnson was a licensed practical nurse in her native Nigeria, a grueling job that took both an emotional and physical toll. “I got tired of seeing patients dying almost every day because they cannot afford their medical expenses,” she said.

The death of a young patient was the final straw for Johnson, who decided to leave Nigeria in hopes of finding a more fulfilling path.

In 2001, she called her brother, who lived in Canada, and asked him to help her start the citizenship process, in order for her to move overseas.

While waiting for the immigration process to take place, Johnson said her uncle, who was living in Indianapolis at the time, invited her to attend his wedding. She received a visiting visa and flew to the U.S. for the wedding. While there, she explained to her uncle what she was experiencing and her attempt to move to Canada.

“My uncle said, ‘Debbie, you can’t live in Canada,’” she said, and he promised to help her explore ways to stay in the U.S.

Johnson was living with her uncle and his new wife when she began to collect the necessary information to file for residency and school. Then suddenly, things took a turn. Her uncle’s new wife had a change of heart. “My uncle said they can no longer house me,” she said. “He led me out of his house and I became homeless.”

She was alone, unhoused in the Indiana winter and in a strange country. To make matters worse, the visa she had received upon her entry into the U.S. was only valid for six months.

“I just didn’t know what to do. I mean, I didn’t know who to talk to, because in my country, we did not have any shelter for homeless,” she said.

Eventually, Johnson was able to secure a religious working class visa and found a pastor in Georgia who was willing to help her get back on her feet.

The experience of being unhoused and undocumented left an impression and planted the seeds for what would eventually become TenderLove Community Center.

“I started to think about homeless people,” she said. “They all have unique stories to tell that led them to becoming homeless.”

Johnson pondered what could be done to not only help those who experience homelessness, but help them break the cycle of being unhoused.

Fashion design

It was then that the idea hit her: fashion design. Johnson had attended a vocational school for two years in Nigeria studying fashion design.

She now had her idea; she just needed a place to plant her roots.

“Where can I go that will accommodate a diversity of people like me, so I found some places and when I saw Albuquerque, it took me several, several minutes ... to pronounce and when I saw New Mexico, I’m like, ‘I might go to Mexico,’” Johnson said with a smile on her face.

She made the move to the Duke City in 2011 and fell in love with the climate and its people.

With both her idea and location secured, Johnson then went to work researching other organizations in Albuquerque that assist the unhoused to ensure she was not duplicating another person’s work. Once she found no other similar organizations, Johnson opened TenderLove Community Center’s doors in 2013. The community center offered its first sewing class that September, a 12-month course where clients learned how to sew clothing and even create a wedding gown.

While there was early success for TenderLove, Johnson felt more could be done.

“We figured out that there are some components that were still missing,” she said. “A lot of our clients, they drop out of school, they didn’t have a high school diploma, so we added GED preparatory classes, we also included a computer literacy class.”

The practice of adding services for individuals would soon become commonplace for both Johnson and TenderLove. Over the years, TenderLove has added courses in small business skills, financial literacy, parenting, culinary arts and nutrition, motivational behavior therapy and health education. It has recently expanded into housing services as well, offering clients assistance with both rapid rehousing and a recovery home for those with addiction issues.

The center is able to fund these services through a mix of private donations and government funds and all services are offered free of charge.

‘I love this program’

Clients come to TenderLove from all walks of life. Some struggle with addition issues. Others are or have recently been incarcerated, and others are leaving a difficult home situation.

Crystal Barreras came to TenderLove in 2020. Unhoused and struggling with addiction issues, she felt like she had nowhere to turn.

“I was facing 18 years in prison, I didn’t have my children, pretty much blew all my bridges,” she said. “I got here and was faced with some hard truths.”

But Barreras said those hard truths soon turned into love and compassion. She began to set goals, learn money management skills and was able to get herself and her daughter out of homelessness.

“I love this program mostly because it’s like a home,” she said. “When you walk in here, we love you right away, that’s amazing.”

Barreras is now working at TenderLove as a senior case manager. Johnson said Barreras is an example of the kind of opportunity that is possible for the people who walk through their doors. “I don’t see homeless when they come,” Johnson said. “I see them as next mayor, next governor, I don’t look down because they are homeless.”

TenderLove’s programs are designed to change a client’s life for the better and encourage them to break the cycles of homelessness.

“We don’t do handouts,” she said. “We do hand up, and it is really helping.”

Gino Gutierrez is the good news reporter at the Albuquerque Journal. If you think you have a good news story, email him at goodnews@abqjournal.com