Our Story / History
A Program Born From Lived Experience
I’m Sandra Roussel, founder of Fresh Start Housing. This program wasn’t built from a business plan or a grant proposal. It was built from my own life, and from a single moment standing on a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand.
Learning to Survive, Then Learning to Thrive
My path to founding this program started long before I ever imagined running one. I left home at fourteen and spent years finding my own way, learning quickly that survival depended on staying clear-headed and alert to my surroundings. Sobriety wasn’t a rule I followed. It was the thing that kept me safe. That lesson has stayed with me ever since, and it’s part of why sobriety isn’t negotiable in this program today. I’ve seen firsthand what the alternative costs.
In my early twenties, a local Army recruiter noticed me and asked about my situation. Despite obstacles that should have disqualified me, including a lack of formal education past the age of fourteen, he helped get me enlisted. The Army gave me something I hadn’t had in years: structure, food, shelter, and the beginning of an education. It changed the direction of my life.
Finding a New Path
After a service-related injury ended my military career, I spent the next decade teaching myself computer programming and software development, work that suited the more solitary period of rebuilding I was in at the time. It turned out I had a real aptitude for it, and the discipline and problem-solving I built during those years still shapes how I approach program development today.
The House That Started Everything
In 2008, my family relocated to Indiana. Not long after, I purchased a run-down investment property, structurally sound but badly in need of care. While I was up on a ladder painting one afternoon, I noticed a group of young people hurrying down the alley behind the house. When I asked where they were headed, they told me they were rushing to get a seat at the local soup kitchen before the food ran out.
That was the moment everything came together. I decided, right there, to build something for young people like them, a way to get back on their feet, become self-sufficient, and build a future instead of being defined by what they’d been through.
Building the Expertise to Match the Mission
Running a housing program well means understanding far more than housing. Over the following years, I pursued education in psychology, sociology, adult and community education, clinical mental health counseling, executive development in public service, and opioid treatment, each addition responding to a real need I encountered in the residents I was working with. A Doctor of Education is the final step in that journey, one that lets me teach this program’s methods to others so the work can reach further than I can reach alone.
Built to Last, On Our Own Terms
From the beginning, Fresh Start Housing has been self-funded rather than grant- or donation-dependent. That independence means the program answers to its residents and its mission, not to a funding cycle, and it’s part of why the model has stayed consistent for over sixteen years.
None of This Happened Alone
I didn’t get here by myself. Strangers who showed simple kindness during my hardest years, a mentor who has been both my toughest critic and closest friend, a teacher who showed me what patience and belief in someone can do, and my husband, whose steady support carried me through more than I can put into words, all of them are part of this story. If you’re building your own fresh start right now, I hope you find people like that in your corner too, the way I did.
