Some arrivals feel less like beginnings and more like answers.
That’s the feeling surrounding the announcement that Monica J.D. Yvonne, Esq. has been named Executive Director of Bethany House. It’s a moment that those who know her story will recognize as something a long time in the making.
Toledo is where Monica’s story started, and it’s where she has chosen to continue it. As a Toledo native, she has built a career that stretches from direct legal services in the neighborhoods she grew up knowing to a prestigious national training role. Through it all, this community — and this mission — never let go.
Long before Monica’s name appeared on any official announcement, it was woven into the fabric of Bethany House in quieter ways. In 2013, she organized an annual wish list donation drive for the organization and connected the Thurgood Marshall Law Program to annually adopt a Bethany House family at Christmas. She later served on the Lucas County Domestic Violence Task Force, where her legal background and her unflinching grasp of what survivors face made her an invaluable voice at the table. In 2025, she joined the Bethany House Board.
When the Executive Director role opened shortly after, she didn’t hesitate. “This felt like divine timing,” she said. And for the board welcoming her into the role, the sentiment was mutual.
"Monica's appointment is the result of a thoughtful process, and the board couldn't be more excited about where she'll take us. She brings legal expertise, advocacy experience, and a genuine love for this community that's rare to find in one person. We're honored to have her leading Bethany House into its next chapter."
Monica speaks openly about her own experience with poverty, racism, sexism, and trauma. Those experiences made her a more skilled attorney, a more empathetic advocate, and a leader capable of meeting survivors where they are. She is also a proud first-generation college graduate and attorney, a detail that adds quiet texture to a career built in service of people fighting to secure what others take for granted.
Monica’s own LinkedIn profile reads simply: “Specially skilled, uniquely qualified, divinely called.” It’s a hard description to improve upon.
She holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Toledo College of Law and a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of North Florida. She is licensed to practice law in Ohio and also holds an Ohio professional educator’s license, reflecting a lifelong belief that teaching is itself a form of advocacy.
She spent five years as a Staff Attorney at Advocates for Basic Legal Equality (ABLE) in Toledo, representing low-income clients in the same community she now leads. She then moved to Legal Aid of Western Ohio, where she served as Supervising Attorney leading a team working in partnership with the Department of Job and Family Services. Over that time, she represented survivors of domestic violence, veterans, military families, and low-income clients across a broad range of needs, from housing and bankruptcy to health benefits and family law. Most recently, as Director of Training Justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, she led a multi-state remote team delivering education and training in racial and economic justice to legal aid attorneys and advocates across the country.
Monica is the first Executive Director of color in Bethany House’s more than 40-year history. That’s a milestone that deserves to be named plainly and understood fully.
Domestic violence doesn’t fall equally. Black women are killed by intimate partners at nearly three times the rate of white women, and an estimated 51% of Black female adult homicides are connected to intimate partner violence. An Ohio Domestic Violence Network survey found that nearly half of Black and African American survivor respondents feared violence from police when calling for help, a reality that shapes every decision a survivor makes, including whether to reach out at all. Bethany House has written about this intersection before, and it has shaped the organization’s approach to care.
Monica’s leadership changes more than who holds the title. When Bethany House is led by someone who shares the lived cultural experience of so many of the women it serves — someone who understands the intersecting weight of race, poverty, and trauma not as theory but as life — it changes what’s possible. It changes who feels seen when they walk through the door.
Deidra Lashley, whose nearly 13 years as Executive Director transformed Bethany House’s reach and financial foundation, leaves knowing the mission is in capable hands. “I’m leaving knowing the mission is in extraordinary hands,” she said. “Monica’s depth of experience, her personal connection to this work, and her commitment to the women and children we serve give me complete confidence in what’s ahead.”
"Stepping into this role is so much more than a career move - it is deeply and profoundly personal for me. It is a literal answer to prayer and I feel as if it has God's fingerprints all over it. I'm honored to serve the women and children who are at the heart of the Bethany House mission and I look forward to this new chapter."
The sentiment reflects what Monica has said from the start: that Bethany House has been part of her life for more than a decade, as a donor, an advocate, and a board member, and that Toledo has always pulled her back. This appointment is not a departure from the career she has built. It is where that career was always heading.
Bethany House enters this new chapter on strong ground. The organization remains the only program in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan committed to keeping mothers and children together, and Celebrity Wait Night 2026 showed just how much this community believes in that mission. Nearly 400 guests attended.
Bethany House recently marked its 40th anniversary — four decades of shelter, advocacy, and transformation in the lives of survivors and their children — and a fitting backdrop for the next chapter of this work.
Monica steps into this role as someone who has been preparing for it her entire career and, by her own account, her entire life. Specially skilled. Uniquely qualified. Divinely called.
Welcome home, Monica.