Tonja's Place was founded from lived experience, resilience, and a deep understanding of transportation insecurity.

Simone Jordan was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a place where survival, strength, and independence started early. 

By the age of seven, she and her sister were riding the city bus alone to school. No adult. No guidance. Just two little girls navigating a world that required us to grow up quickly.

That was when she first experienced what transportation insecurity truly feels like.

When your life depends on someone else's schedule, stress becomes normal.

And being unsupported becomes familiar.

Years later, after relocating to Atlanta, Simone Jordan was living in a Christian-based shelter as a single mother rebuilding her life. 

The shelter provided temporary housing, however long-term independence was not always the focus. Many residents stayed for years. That was never her vision. She wanted stability. She wanted ownership of my future.

Through what she believe was diving timing, she learned about a separate charitable program that donated vehicles to single mothers who were employed and able to maintain insurance. It was not widely shared. In fact, she later learned she was not initially meant to receive that information.

But she did.

And she applied.

She was selected as a recipient of a donated 1996 Toyota Sienna.

That vehicle became a turning point.

Not because it was her first vehicle, but because it came at a time when stability mattered most.

It allowed her to maintain employment.

It allowed her to move freely.

It allowed her to rebuild without waiting on someone else's permission.

She was so grateful that she began utilizing that van to help others.

She gave rides to strangers trying to get to work.

To mothers leaving shelters. To women standing at bus stops with children in one hand and additional bags in the other.

Not just children.

Baggage.

Clothes. Documents. Diapers. Their entire lives packed into plastic bags.

She saw exhaustion in their eyes. She saw silent prayers. She saw the weight of survival.

And she saw myself.

Those bus stops were more than waiting areas. They were moments suspended between instability and opportunity.

That is where the seed was planted.

Nearly 80% of U.S. single-parent households are headed by single mothers, and most single parents rely on one income to support their families. 

Single parents are approximately five times more likely to live in poverty than married-couple families.

Around 28% of single mothers live below the poverty line, compared to about 15% to single fathers and roughly 5% of married couples.

Transportation barriers directly impact employment access. In many U.S. cities, public transit routes do not align with job locations, childcare schedules, or training programs. 

Workers who rely entirely on public transportation can lose hours each week commuting, limiting job options, advancement opportunities, and overall income stability.

For many single-parent households, limited income combined with unreliable transportation creates a cycle of instability that is difficult to break.

Transportation insecurity is not just inconvenient. 

It is an employment barrier.

Reliable transportation increases workforce participation, job retention, and long-term economic mobility for single-parent households.

Tonja's Place exists to break that cycle.

Tonja's Place was born from lived experience.

We provide:

Refurbished vehicles

Short-term auto insurance support

Licensing and certification assistance

Workforce readiness education

Because reliable transportation is not a luxury.

It is a lifeline.

To remove transportation barriers and provide families with the stability, and opportunity they need to rebuild their lives, one car, one moment, one family at a time. 

This mission is rooted in lived experience.

Simone Jordan lived it.

And now Tonja's Place help others move forward from it.