Mollie Lowery

Mollie Ellen Lowery (née Raddatz; August 2, 1945 – July 25, 2016) was an American advocate for homeless and mentally ill people in Los Angeles. In 1984, she co-founded the non-profit housing support center, LAMP, and in 2006 she founded an advocacy group, Housing Works.

Early life Lowery was born Mollie Ellen Raddatz on August 2, 1945, in Van Nuys, Los Angeles. She was educated at Bishop Alemany High School and the University of Portland, where she received a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling.

In 1984, wanting to help people who had been moved out of California's mental hospitals, she left Ocean Park and started working with philanthropist Frank Rice. Together they founded the Los Angeles Men's Place, based in Skid Row. The facility initially offered night-time support to homeless and mentally ill people. Rice and Lowery later renamed the center LAMP, and expanded it to provide permanent supportive housing and complementary social services, such as counselling and substance abuse treatment. The foundation also opened a laundromat on Skid Row, employing homeless people as well as providing a service for them, and later a convenience store and a craft shop.

Lowery's approach was groundbreaking in that her organisation offered help to homeless people without preconditions, and considered housing to be the most crucial service to provide to people in need.

Recognition In 2003, Lowery received the Ruth Hollmann Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mental Health from Share! and the Emotional Health Association of California.

In 2016, the California Community Foundation named Lowery one of their 30 Unsung Heroes of Los Angeles County. She served as the group's director until 2015, and continued in an advisory position until a few weeks before her death.

Lowery died of cancer on July 25, 2016. She was 70 years old.