Our Story

The concept of a Joseph Center was a long-standing vision of the founder Mona Highline. In 2015, Mrs. Highline and a group of women came together to develop the Joseph Center. Through a community needs assessment, the women discovered a gap in services for homeless women with their children. An auxiliary building at a church was offered to the women to open as a day shelter. The Joseph Center opened its doors September 8, 2016 to provide a safe place during the day for homeless families with children. This was our singular focus to empower these women’s lives with purpose.

The Joseph Center was able to help these families with tangible resources, application fees, and rent deposits all provided by community donations. The Joseph Center was located at the auxiliary building for about a year when the church came under new leadership. We were asked to leave and were forced to find a new space.

The Joseph Center split its services to a building at the Salvation Army and administrative offices at the Center for Independence. At first, we thought this was a setback however it opened the door for us to start a new program called the representative payee. The organization thrived in these new locations for about a year although there were some logistical challenges. That fall, we were once again told that the day shelter program would have to move. Winter was coming. We began actively looking for a new space with the intention of merging all of our services together under one roof.

A generous donation was given to the Joseph Center to purchase a building. By January 2019, the Joseph Center had a new home and renovations on the building began. The Joseph Center continues to have a day shelter as well as the Joseph Center Adult Advocacy Program (JCAAP) and Generating All Possibilities (GAP) fund. The representative payee program changed into Integrated Financial Services providing guardianship, conservatorship, VA fiduciary, and budget counseling.