Kim Montroll

I can see it now: Jim pacing outside of Tryst, drinking his 1000th glass of green tea, talking on his BlackBerry. It was around 2008, and he and others were starting to meet around the crisis of incarcerated people being released and having no place to be, to live, to thrive. It was constantly on Jim’s heart. Over months, he prayed and met together with others in the community called to respond to the reentry crisis. One day, sitting at Tryst, he saw with new eyes — this abandoned, dilapidated building right across the street was going to be auctioned. As he tells it, he thought “this can become a beautiful place for people coming out of incarceration to live.”  

Jubilee Housing bought the 18th Street NW property in the foreclosure auction on May 11, 2009. It was full of rats. It was a mess. It had to be rezoned, and there was so much work to do and money to raise. As the dream became reality – upper floors for reentry housing for men – Jim thought about the ground floor and how it could be used for the community. He was on the founding Board of Life Asset, a group that provides microloans to promising entrepreneurs coming of homelessness, incarceration, poor credit, or other financial challenges. It was a great fit, and Jim and others gripped by the reentry housing crisis made it happen.  

Jim sees the “not yet” in properties, and the unshakable goodness in every person. He embodies a response to the question: How can places be created to help people reclaim their lives, places in resource-rich communities? Jim has many gifts, but these just might be the greatest.