Our Mission
HomeShare American River serves to facilitate safe, fair, valuable, and durable lodging arrangements that meet the particular needs for housing and household services of a diverse range of otherwise under-served individuals and communities, while also generating a bounty of other personal and community benefits.
Housing costs have exploded throughout our region, and more of us than ever can't afford to remain in the homes and neighborhoods we know and love.
Join us in:
quickly creating fair, affordable housing so that our neighbors can live where they choose (aging-in-place, resisting displacement)
and making the carbon and resources that built and run each home go twice as far
and developing lifelong interpersonal and intergenerational skills and connections (meaning better health, too!)
Who we are
Justin Ellerby
Co-Founder,
Executive Director
Justin's passion for homesharing is grounded in his professional background in nonprofit cooperative housing, and by homesharing himself: four times as a Guest and, with his partner Marta, as current Host to four individuals.
He holds an MBA in Community Economic Development, and is an aspiring senior.
Retired American Baptist pastor Rev. Virgil Nelson and Lynn, his wife of 53 years, have served as missionaries and development workers around the world for decades. The Nelsons have also been blessed to share their home with 17 individuals and families over the years.
Rev. Virgil Nelson
HSAR Co-Founder,
PPoFT Housing Committee Chair
Virgil has also co-founded five other US non-profits, including the first Habitat for Humanity chapter in CA, and currently leads three housing/ shelter initiatives of PPoFT.
Lynn Nelson
Volunteer Matchmaker
Lynn's passion for adult education, social justice, and community development equip her as a extraordinary, committed Volunteer Matchmaker (our first of many to come!)
Ivan Denker Technical Support
Ivan works through the night (from Australia) to run things as simply and as securely as possible.
We've learned from the best!
We are deeply grateful for the generosity of knowledge, materials, trainings, and research continuously shared among our fellow nonprofit homeshare programs through our national association:
Also a proud member of
