REALTOR® Good Neighbor Awarded for Lasting Commitment to Vine Maple Place

Jule Johnson, a real estate agent at Windermere (Bellevue West), has a hard time remembering when she first got involved with Vine Maple Place (VMP). “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” she said, “since the beginning.”

The longevity of her commitment to Vine Maple Place is a major reason the Seattle King County REALTORS® Good Neighbor Committee chose Jule to win the Q2 2025 Good Neighbor Award. She has been supporting the mission of VMP since at least 2000 when the faith-based organization was founded.

VMP works with single parents who are homeless or on the brink of homelessness to break the cycle of homelessness. “The parents who come through our program tell us that their children are having the same experiences as they did when they were young,” says Michelle Frets, the executive director of VMP. “They walk through that door to see their kids’ lives change.”

The VMP model includes housing stabilization in the form of emergency housing or eviction prevention, counseling, life skills and budgeting training, workforce development, and trauma-informed child and youth services. Two-thirds of the individuals they serve are children, and they work to provide them with the tools to avoid repeating the patterns of their parents that resulted in homelessness.

In 2000, their first year of operation, Vine Maple Place served 14 families. In 2024, they had 524 families in the program. The need is great—of the almost 500 calls they receive per month, they can only accept 90 families into the program. VMP has created a community support system that multiplies their work, a community that includes food banks, shelters, churches, city agencies, private landlords and property managers, community organizations, and of course individuals who volunteer their time, talent, and treasure.

Jule’s involvement has centered around addressing the personal needs of families in the program. It started with fulfilling Christmas wish lists, included home-baking birthday cakes, and has culminated with annual fundraisers raising more than $30,000 to provide safety and hope for families experiencing homelessness.

When asked about her proudest accomplishment with Vine Maple Place, Jule says, “It’s touching individual lives. Michelle [Frets] and I will get together on a Saturday morning, and I’ll say, ‘Who really needs help? Give me a mom.’ And then I will mobilize my network around providing for that family’s need.”

“If we didn’t have people that cared the way Jule does, this wouldn’t work,” says Michelle Frets. “We run the organization like a business with goals and strategies and metrics, but it’s the volunteers that really add the heart to the model.”

The Quarterly Good Neighbor Award comes with a $500 check to Vine Maple Place. Committee members Michele Hanrahan (Chair), Pam McCain, Tamara Paul, Darla White, and Judy Naegeli presented the check on June 20, 2025.