The Light House Recovery Program's new $2.5 million home can accomodate up to 27 clients. After breaking ground last February, the house was completed in late December and celebrated its open house in early January. Photo by Ben Hensley

In 2021, a historic home in Downtown Fresno was lost in a fire.

Normally, that type of news would make the rounds over the course of a day while displaced residents recovered what they could, set up temporary residence and prepared an insurance claim.

For Vikki Luna, that simply wasn’t an option.

Luna, who founded the Light House Recovery Program — a faith-based nonprofit that helps struggling, at-risk women with addiction, homelessness and other life crisis events — knew that, regardless of the cause, financial loss or emotional burden, her organization would rebound.

The program

In 2007, Vikki Luna founded the Light House Recovery Program, building on her experience working with at-risk youth in the juvenile justice system and substance abuse services.

First operating out of a single home in Northeast Fresno, the program quickly grew and by 2012, occupied three properties scattered across town.

However, despite the program’s success, Luna and the organization knew that facilitating clients through three different properties was taxing, not only on the clients, but on the employees as well.

In 2012, the same year Luna gave up her full-time employment to dedicate her time to the Light House, the program moved into its new home, a 4,600 square-foot Victorian-style home on the corner of San Joaquin and L streets.

“It was beautiful. It offered a home-family environment for the women who came here,” Luna said. “Children got to be reunited with their moms for the first time after several months, sometimes nearly a year.”

Luna said that many women who graduated from the program continue to support it to this day. Women in the program are put on a course to achieve self-reliance, earning their GEDs, driver licenses and are required to find and maintain employment while in the program.

The Light House operates several local businesses staffed by current and former clients, including Cornerstone Coffee Company in Downtown Fresno, Light-wear, a clothing and accessory line and LadyBUG Boutique, a retail store located at 5761 N. Palm Ave. near Bullard High School.

The fire

In 2021, Luna was on her way home from church when she received a phone call notifying her of a roof fire at the house.

According to staff, the only sign of the fire was black smoke billowing from the roof. The clients were safely escorted away from the building before the fire engulfed the whole house, destroying the million-dollar home. The nonprofit still owed more than $100,000 on the mortgage.

“On Sunday, October 17, 2021, I got a call,” she said. “It was about 1 o’clock in the afternoon and our house monitor said, ‘Vikki, the house is on fire.”

Just hours after the completion of roof repairs, equipment left behind by the roofers ignited a fire that quickly spread from the roof to engulf the entire 4,600 square-foot house and everything inside.

“I really didn’t take it too seriously because I had gotten one of those phone calls before back in, I think 2008 or 2009,” she said. “When we drove up, there were 40 firefighters here, ten firetrucks and big ladders…I knew that it was beyond repair.”

At the time, 12 residents lived at the house, all of whom were immediately displaced.

The program relocated its residents to a rental property until a new home could be built.

Despite the roofing company’s inability to cover the cost of repairs, the program was able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, including a large donation by an angel donor that helped pay off the remainder of the house that would be constructed in the same location as the nonprofit’s former home.

Luna said the home – a $2.5 million dollar home – benefited from only $750,000 in insurance claims; the rest was paid through donations.

“I had hope when the people started coming around and giving their areas of expertise and their financial support,” Luna said at the groundbreaking for the new house in February 2023. “I felt a sense of security and safety. This is really a community benefit organization.”

The new nome

Opened less than a year after its groundbreaking on Dec. 29, 2023, moving into the new home was a dream come true for Luna and the nonprofit organization.

Being able to design the house from the ground up, Luna aimed to maintain the exterior aesthetic of a century-old Victorian-style home, with new amenities and space for classes, dedicated office space for staff and additional space for clients.

“A lot of what you see got donated; the tile [floors] got donated, the staircase got donated, the chandelier got donated,” Luna said. “A lot of what you see is from the community coming together.”

The new house not only features space for ten additional clients, bringing the total number of potential women served to 27, but also includes additional space for staff.

Upon entry, clients are greeted with a grand staircase and entry space. A large dining area and shared community kitchen and living room are available downstairs for all clients to use.

 

Upstairs the house features five bedrooms – two master bedrooms, complete with bathroom facilities, for clients who have consistently been in the program for more than 90 days, and three community rooms which share a community bathroom.

“The old house was one big house, but if you closed the doors it was a fourplex,” Luna said. “When we came in before, a kitchen was actually office space; an oversized closet was my space. With this one, we got to design and make it custom-made for us.”

The new house also features classroom space for GED students and other courses. It also includes a staff kitchen and breakroom and an upstairs apartment separate from the main house that serves as the final step in the program – a shared apartment space preparing clients to move into the Light House’s offsite apartment units.

The additional space also allows for women to live with their families more comfortably, many of whom recently reunited with their families after months or even years.

“Most of the women have children,” Luna said. “Some of them might be older and so their children are grown…it just depends on what’s going on at the time.”

Luna said that in phase two, the clients are welcome to have their children to visit or live with them in the house.

 

“By the end of next year, I want to have a daycare in place,” Luna said, adding that she would like to find a nearby location to house the new project. “It’s going to take the community again to help us; maybe there’s a business or landowner who has a piece of property that’s commercial zoned down here or has a building that they’re not using that’s commercial use.”

Luna said that they hope to raise the extra funds through committed donors, seeking partners to help raise money for new clients and the future daycare center.