SOMERSET, Ky. — Jessica Lee, the founder and president of Help the Homeless-Somerset, has a passion for helping people experiencing homelessness. Her organization, which launched in Dec. 2022, strives to help people in several ways.

What You Need To Know

  • Help the Homeless-Somerset is a new organization that works with community partners to help people experiencing homelessness

  • Jessica Lee is the organization’s founder and president

  • In the short time the organization has been operating, it has seen rapid growth

  • Help the Homeless-Somerset assists people experiencing homelessness with several things, including handing out food, providing access to showers and funding access to ID cards

“We will connect people to things like shower access, transportation, housing vouchers, hotel vouchers, rural health clinics,” said Lee.

Her passion for this work has led to the organization gaining over 3,000 members in just three months.

“We actually have grown so quickly that we’ve kind of been forced to go ahead and incorporate and transition from a civil group that existed on social media to an actual incorporated nonprofit,” said Lee.

Some programs that Help the Homeless-Somerset offers include handing out food, transporting people to shelters in other areas and funding access to ID cards to help those trying to go back to school or get a job.

“Our mission really is to create short-term solutions and long-term solutions for the unhoused members of our community,” said Bonnie Whitis, the vice president of the organization.

Bringing the community together to do that is a big part of what the organization does.

“We just try to lift everybody up and get the community to just work together and see what we can do in unison is much better than what we do apart,” said Lee.

Help the Homeless-Somerset was in downtown Somerset on Tuesday night to feed people in their community.

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