Katina Hollday

Founder, CEO

KATINA HOLLIDAY
Founder/CEO of Holliday’s Helping Hands
Biography

From the time she was a little girl growing up in Aberdeen, Mississippi, Katina Holliday knew she wanted to help people. How exactly? She didn’t quite know. Never in her wildest dreams, though, could she ever have imagined running one of Southern California’s most successful, minority-led companies dedicated to serving society's “forgotten populations.”

As founder of Holliday’s Helping Hands (HHH), Miss Holliday is transforming the lives of both homeless and pregnant women recently released from the penal system who are taking their first steps to reenter society. Through her specialized programs, HHH is helping give them newfound purpose. But that’s not all her faith-based company does. In fact, it was her ability to adapt to the needs of the communities she serves that led her to answer a call from the Department of Human Services. The agency sought to ease the pressure exerted on our overburdened hospitals caused by the high numbers of COVID patients. Miss Holliday worked closely with the County of Los Angeles to reinvent motels and hotels in communities with the greatest need into makeshift hospitals to accommodate the overflow.

To get a glimpse of what Miss Holliday is all about, one need only retrace her upbringing. Born into a warm, caring and religious family, she was one of two children from parents who stressed the importance of education, hard work and serving others. Her mother only had a 6th grade education and her father never earned his high school diploma. Despite their own personal setbacks, they understood the importance of a good education and all too well the limitations faced by those without one.

Though she initially wanted to be a doctor, the road to becoming a nurse — a career that still suited her desire to help others — would take her less time to achieve. So she worked three jobs to put herself through nursing school and before long obtained her degree and began working in the field. To top that off, she did all this as a single mother raising a young son.


It was during this time that she met the man who would dramatically impact her life. Melvin Jackson was her boyfriend at the time. He lived in Los Angeles where he enjoyed a career in music. Miss Holliday decided to pull up stakes in Mississippi and join him in California. Though that relationship ended (they still remain good friends to this day), the move resulted in Miss Holliday expanding her nursing experience to include working with the homeless and those with mental illness. The demand for nurses in this area was high and it led her to opening her first business — a nursing registry where she would supply hospitals and other healthcare facilities with nurses on an as-needed basis. But in 2008 when the economy crashed, hospitals started trimming their budgets and stopped working with outside contractors and her business spiraled into an irrevocable tailspin.

Not one to be discouraged, Miss Holliday went back to school and earned her Masters Degree with her sights set on becoming a professor. While working at a free clinic as part of her clinical rotation in 2012, she was in frequent contact with LA’s homeless population. She felt an immediate connection with this disenfranchised population, many of whom suffer from mental illness.

Miss Holliday traces her familiarity and fondness for the homeless to her childhood. Her grandmother, Miss Dessie, was a powerful and inspiring guiding force in her life. One thing that stands out in her memory was her grandmother’s constant care of the town’s most vulnerable soul whose name was Shine. Though he had a family, Shine preferred to take to the streets and he depended on the kindness of strangers — most notably Miss Dessie — to take care of his most basic needs including three meals a day and other essentials.

Later, when Miss Holliday was working alongside the homeless population of Los Angeles, she couldn’t help but recall her grandmother’s kindness when caring for Shine. And it was that relationship that set the foundation for Holliday’s Helping Hands.

In 2018, she founded her eponymous company with a single house in South Los Angeles that provided interim housing for families and pregnant women experiencing homelessness. By providing nourishing food, safe shelter and an array of services, she witnessed her clients achieving happy, independent and productive lives. To make this transition as seamless as possible, HHH depended on its “roadmaps” for their futures — detailed, comprehensive plans that help clients hone their lifestyle skills, plan monthly home budgets, prepare for job interviews and become good neighbors and citizens. Thanks to HHH, hundreds of clients have been placed into permanent homes of their own and are enjoying independent, fulfilling lives.

Only the future knows how she will use her God-given talents, drive, energy and dedication to continue serving her fellow man. One thing you can count on, though, is that you will hear a lot more of Miss Holliday and Holliday’s Helping Hands.