Pathfinders for Hope
01 · —
IGPathfinders
Pathfinders for Hope
501(c)(3) nonprofit
Operation Iron Gate
Who we are
Pathfinders for Hope
is building a coordinated
front door.
Pathfinders for Hope is a Vallejo nonprofit leading the Vallejo Pilot for Operation Iron Gate, a confirmed-handoff referral system powered by Ninety-Nine Systems, Inc. Our principle is simple: a referral is not complete until the connection is confirmed. We are recruiting organizations for the Vallejo pilot and are not yet open for direct service intake.
Mission
Sec 01 / 06Pathfinders for Hope 
Our Mission
A front door
that does
not close.
Our mission is to build a coordinated front door for people facing housing instability in
Vallejo, California, and to make sure that door leads somewhere.
A person seeking help should not have to tell their story five times to five
different desks. They should not be handed a phone number and called served.
The network we are building is designed so that each request produces a named
next step, a responsible partner, and confirmation that the connection occurred.
We are a nonprofit, but the work is broader than a bed.
Identification. Transportation. Documents. Benefits. Housing navigation. The
gaps between homeless services are where people disappear, and
closing those gaps is the whole job.
VisionSec 02 / 06No dead ends
Our Vision
A community
where no one
gets lost.
We envision a Vallejo where every person who reaches out for help can be
accounted for — not as a case number, but as a neighbor whose situation
someone is still responsible for.
In that community, no one is turned away without a reason they can understand.
No one is referred into silence. And no one has to start over because a file
was closed while they were still unhoused.
No dead ends. That is the standard we are building toward, and it is
the standard we will measure ourselves against.
Our Values
What we stand for,
and how you’d know.
Three values govern how this organization operates. They are not aspirations
posted on a wall. They are the tests we apply to our own decisions.
01
Test 01 / 03
Dignity First
Every person served through the network is a person before they are a situation.
We will use person-first language because language shapes treatment. No one
should have to perform hardship to qualify for respect, and no person's worst
week should become their identity.
Fails if
Perform hardship to qualify
Held in the recordNo record
02
Test 02 / 03
Persistence
A referral is not an outcome. Handing someone an address is not the same as
knowing they arrived. During the pilot, the standard will be to keep a referral
open until the connection is confirmed, because the moment after a handoff is
where people are most often lost.
Fails if
Referral = outcome
Held in the recordNo record
03
Test 03 / 03
Proof
We hold ourselves to what can be shown, not what can be claimed. When results
are reported, the record will show what was offered, what was received, and
what happened next. Where the pilot falls short, that will be visible too.
Fails if
Claimed without record
Held in the recordNo record
HandoffsPathfinders for Hope
In Our Words
“People do not
fall through cracks.
They fall through handoffs
nobody was responsible for.”
Why we exist
Pathfinders for Hope was formed because the distance between services is
where people are lost — not because any one organization failed.
Homeless services providers in this community are stretched, and the handoffs
between them were never designed to be followed end to end.
Our role
Our role in the pilot will be to coordinate the space between services and
make each handoff visible. That is a narrow job, deliberately. We would
rather do one thing all the way through than do six things partway.
Where people are lost
Illustrative
First contactRecordedNeed identifiedRecordedReferral sentRecordedThe handoffNo one responsibleArrivalNo recordExit stateUnknownThe Path
Sec 04 / 06One path
How We Work
One path,
four stages,
no dead ends.
During the pilot, a person referred through the network will follow one path.
Each stage will have a responsible partner and a condition that must be met
before the next stage begins.
01
Arrival
The person's situation will be recorded once so they are not asked to repeat
their history at every stage that follows.
02
Barriers
Participating providers will identify what is standing between the person
and stable housing, such as missing identification, transportation,
benefits, or documents.
03
Routing
The person will be connected to the specific resource that addresses the
barrier: a named destination with a named contact, not a list of options.
04
Confirmation
The referral record will stay open until the connection is confirmed. If a
handoff fails, it will return to a responsible partner rather than leaving
the person to solve it alone.
Operation Iron Gate is being built as a confirmed-handoff referral network,
not as a replacement for existing programs. Participating organizations will
keep control of their services while the network tracks whether each referral
reaches a confirmed connection.
The model is also informed by federal work on coordinated responses to homelessness
from the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
Nothing about this asks a provider to change what they do or who they serve. An
organization that offers transportation keeps offering transportation. An
organization that recovers documents keeps recovering documents. What changes is
that the space between them stops being invisible. When Pathfinders for Hope Vallejo
routes a person to a partner, the record stays open until that partner confirms the
person arrived, and a handoff that fails comes back to someone by name.
This is deliberately a narrow job. We are not opening a shelter, and we are not
competing for the funding that keeps existing programs alive. The gap we are
closing is the one nobody owns, because it sits between organizations rather than
inside any one of them. That is the work Pathfinders for Hope Vallejo was formed
to do, and it is the only work we intend to be measured on.
Sec 05 / 06Volunteer directors
Board
Our Board
The Board of Pathfinders for Hope Vallejo.
Pathfinders for Hope Vallejo is governed by a volunteer board of directors. They set the
organization's direction, approve its budget, and answer for its conduct. They
are introduced here because a community deserves to know who is responsible.
No director is paid. Every member serves without compensation, and no member draws a
salary, a stipend, or a fee from the organization. The board meets on a regular schedule,
keeps written minutes, and votes on the decisions that carry real consequence: the annual
budget, the scope of the pilot, and any agreement that binds the organization.
Pathfinders for Hope Vallejo is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, EIN 99-5142558.
That status carries obligations, and we treat them as the floor rather than the ceiling.
Conflicts of interest are declared and recorded. A director with a personal or financial
interest in a decision does not vote on it. Financial records are kept so that a funder,
a partner agency, or a resident can ask what happened to a dollar and get a straight answer.
We hold ourselves to the same standard we ask of the network. A referral is not finished
when it is sent, and a board is not accountable because it says so. Both are judged on what
can be shown. When the pilot produces results, the board will publish them on the same
schedule whether they are good or bad, because an organization that only reports its wins
has not told anyone anything.
View bio
Marco Cardenas
Board Member
View bio
Bre Jackson
Board Chair
View bio
Jose Carrizales
Board Member
View bio
Ronald Hamilton
Board Member
View bio
Dr. Antoinette Olivarez
Board Member
Next
What Comes Next
Building the
first cohort.
We are recruiting our first partner cohort. That is the work in front of us,
and it is the honest description of where this organization stands.
Everything on this page describes what Pathfinders for Hope is built to do and
how it will be held to it. When there are results, they will be published
plainly — including the ones that do not flatter us.
If you run a service in this community, you can add your organization now. If
you want to support the work, a gift funds the front door.
Program status
Phase 01 active
Recruiting
Recruiting the first partner organizations and preparing the pilot system. This is where we are today.
First Cohort
Cases opened, barriers named, every handoff confirmed rather than assumed.
Published Results
What worked, what failed, and the numbers behind both — in the open.
Get Help
Pathfinders for Hope is not yet open for direct intake. For immediate assistance, use the crisis resources on our Get Help page.
View crisis resources
For Organizations
Add your organization so people can be routed to what you offer.
Add your organization
Support the Work
A gift to a homeless nonprofit that is accountable for what happens next.
Give today
Want to know why this organization exists at all?
Read how this started.