From Losing a Home to Creating StoryHome

by Paige A. Riley

This is the story of how Akira Bel-Reve became the leading woman fighting for affordable housing for all.

From a girl who found herself without a home to the leading figure to give everyone a home, meet Akira Bel-Reve. And hear her story of how she became the woman that she is today. 

Akira Gothics Bel-Reve was born Amara Enola Drake on August 29, 2012, to a single mother, Henryetta Sherlock-Watson. She never knew her father. She was raised in a non-insulated two-story house, built in the 1980s. The gas-heated home had been rented by their family for 25 years but had accumulated quite a bit of damage. 

Bel-Reve said they remained in their home growing up because–while her mom had saved money consistently–housing prices continued to rise, making it impossible to move out of the dilapidated rental and buy their own home.

“The house may have been old and had its problems, but it was home.” Henryetta recounted, as she reflected on her daughter’s upbringing. 

“I remember that, in the winter, we would have to break out the big blankets,” Bel-Reve said. “But, in the summer, the only thing you could sleep under was the small and thin sheets. Anything other than that, and you run the risk of having a heat stroke.” 

Akira spoke about how the insulation problem affected her when she was a child. 

“The concrete walls really didn’t help with insulation in the winter to keep out the cold or to keep us cool in the summer,” she said.

For nine years, she and her mom lived in those conditions, before it all came crashing down.

Bel-Reve is thankful that it happened when Henryetta was at work and she was at school.

The family found themselves without a home when the historic Western Kentucky tornado system of 2021 leveled their house and hundreds of other homes and businesses across Warren County and the region.

“Mom was about to pay that month’s rent,” Bel-Reve said. “So she used that rent money to get us a cheap hotel room for the night, hoping we could just deal with it for the next day.” 

Akira never saw the initial damage of the tornado to her home, as officials deemed the site too unsafe to visit. But the aftermath and cleanup was enough.

For the next 13 years, Akira and her mother faced some of the worst hardships. With little salvaged from her childhood home and the pressure her mom faced to keep a job and Akira in school while also finding a place to sleep, she remembered feeling constantly confused.

Housing costs continued to rise, and the mother and daughter struggled staying in one place for too long.

“They were always couchsurfing but also didn’t want to be too much of a bother to friends,” said family friend Braden Harris. “I wish the two had asked for more help sooner had we fully known their situation.”

Bel-Reve and her mom moved from motels and hotels to couchsurfing to living in her mom’s old 2006 Dodge Caravan.

“Mom always said that, no matter what, she would not allow me to sleep on the streets,” Bel-Reve said.

Inconsistent transportation and living arrangements made holding a job a challenge. And Henrietta felt that, every time she landed a job, it was upended by new technology that required training she struggled with.

As Bel-Reve looked ahead to her own future, she didn’t just think about the job market. She thought about the problems she was determined to fix.

Bel-Reve was admitted to Western Kentucky University and then started a career as a journalist at the Bowling Green Daily News at 22. That career path allowed her to see firsthand the work being done to address the growing pains of Bowling Green and Warren County and its affects on affordable housing.

She had the opportunity to write in-depth stories about property owners who were not taking proper care of housing, under the radar of local authorities. She covered the impacts ever-changing state and federal laws had on the ability of local officials to deal with housing crises. 

But she also discovered the hard work of Habitat for Humanity and efforts from local businesses and charities to create new approaches to home ownership. She learned about the career pathways built by the Goodwill Opportunity Center to provide employment opportunities for local residents looking for a second chance. She reported on the investments by local nonprofits to fund substance abuse recovery and reentry programs for non-violent felony offenders. She learned more about the Housing Authority’s expansion beyond providing housing into supporting economic opportunity and upward mobility for first-time entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Ultimately, Bell-Reve realized how much she didn’t know about her own town as a lifelong Bowling Greenian. During her six-year career as a journalist, she became dedicated to solutions journalism: reporting on all the new and expanded programs being built in the region to address pressing problems, and making more people aware of the solutions in which these organizations were investing.

Following her stint at the Daily News, she started StoryHouseBG, an organization dedicated to raising the profile of efforts across the region to address housing challenges. Working with the Unified Government’s Neighborhood & Community Services team, the Unified Government Planning Commission, and others, Bell-Reve established an organization designed to elevate the visibility and points of connection across all these initiatives.

Above all else, it was Bel-Reve’s willingness to share her own story and struggles that caught people’s attention.

“She could share these stories with authority, because she’s lived these stories,” family friend Harris said. “It is authentic, and it’s focused on solutions.”

Ten years later, StoryHouseBG has expanded to StoryHouse Inc. and has divisions across the U.S. and 14 other countries. Her work in Bowling Green has been repeatedly highlighted as a model for how storytelling can help connect multiple groups to pilot and test solutions to significant challenges, such as housing insecurity.

Recently, Bell-Reve was named one of the 50 most influential change-makers in the world by The Wall Street Journal. But, for her, Bowling Green is still home.

“I’m a builder, in more ways than one,” she said. “I don’t mind lending a hand. I know the struggle, and I want to help. I wasn’t looking for accolades; I just wanted to be heard, and to make sure that the needs of people like me were met, too.”