A former police officer and her team of survivors recently came to Downey to help a local resident get back on her feet and get a fresh start on life.

Based out of Whittier, Women Empowered Through Labors of Love (W.E.L.L.) is a non-profit organization that renovates, remodels, and redecorates the homes of domestic violence, sexual abuse and human sex trafficking.

Executive Director Denese Lopez says she is all too familiar with these sorts of victims.

“I’m a retired police officer with the state of California…I’ve been an emergency hotline operator as a volunteer many years ago for a crisis center for women and children,” said Lopez. “That Prompted me to want to be a part of helping these women heal.”

After some of these women have escaped their abusers, begun healing and started to start a new life, Lopez says that most – probably around 90% she estimates – have nothing.

“They’ve left their home behind, they’ve taken their children, they start all over,” said Lopez. “Many of them don’t have a job yet; they’re in section aide, their family members are paying their rent or whatever it may be…many of their homes are just pieced together.

“We go in and we redo their home from floor to ceiling, including cleaning it. A lot of them have issues with decluttering; it’s just that they’ve lost everything so now they have the tendency to keep everything.”

Lopez says she wouldn’t call this habit “hoarding” as might initially be assumed.

“A lot of it is not necessarily furniture and things like that,” said Lopez. “Papers – because they’ve gone through a court system, they’ve changed their children’s school when they left – they don’t know how and what to get rid of so they keep everything.”

Lopez says that she’s been doing this work for several years, however just recently achieved nonprofit status. In terms of renovations, Lopez says that she has “personal people” who donate, as well as some Home Depot and furniture stores that sell to her at a discount.

Lopez also relies on the work of her all-women crew – many of which are survivors themselves – who have skills in tile-laying and other such trades.These survivors help the cause not because it is required of them, but for the experience of giving back to someone who is going through a hard time similar to what they once endured.

“They don’t have to do anything, but it’s something that they have never been part of before,” said Lopez.

W.E.L.L.’s most recent project brought Lopez and her crew to Downey, where they spent around three days cleaning and reorganizing a small one bed, one bath apartment on Old River School Road.

Lopez says that she hopes to eventually be able to partner with other organizations in order to provide for all the needs of the women she helps.

“We have resources,” said Lopez. “We just need to make those connections. Being a nonprofit and us just becoming that…now it’s the time where you can go to other nonprofits, other organizations and partner with them to help my women beyond what they’re giving them.”