Small business owner Jennifer Gorey specializes in haircuts and other styling services for homebound and special-needs individuals through her mobile salon, Jenn's Mobile Cuts. She's traveled across the Spokane area bringing her services directly into private homes and assisted living facilities since launching the mobile salon in summer 2020.

"Providing hair and salon services to the elderly is deeply meaningful to me. It allows me to care for residents in a way that goes beyond appearance. It is restoring dignity, confidence, and a sense of normalcy," says Gorey, who adds that her work is as much about connection as it is about hair.

Before picking up her scissors, she often sits and talks with clients to understand their needs and ease anxieties, especially for those who are reluctant or living with memory loss, she explains.

“It's just softness and talking to them like they are people,” Gorey says, adding that her approach has been successful with those who may initially resist haircuts or personal care.

“There's always something that I can do,” she says. “I very rarely have had a time where nobody will sit in my chair.”

Gorey frequently works with bedridden clients and adjusts her techniques to accommodate physical and cognitive limitations. Along with haircuts, Gorey offers washes, perms, shaving, and beard trims, although her ability to provide color services is limited as she's partially colorblind to reds.

Her mobile salon is stocked with a range of equipment to help adapt to each home she enters, such as an inflatable neck rest designed to make washing hair in a standard sink more comfortable.

Her work often extends beyond a single hair cut for each appointment, she says.

“If there's one homebound (client), and they have a wife or a child, I'll do the family,” Gorey says. “It’ll save them the trip.”

At Gorey's home office, multicolored folders hold handwritten lists of people she has served over the years. A green folder labeled “Pine Ridge” details weekly and monthly appointments, while other folders track regular visits to adult family homes across the city.

At Pine Ridge Alzheimer’s Special Care, a memory care center at 12009 E. Mission in Spokane Valley where she visits weekly, Gorey says residents may not remember her name, but they recognize her role.

“They know I'm the hair lady,” Gorey says. “Every Thursday, when I show up, you know, they remember me.”

Staff at Pine Ridge say Gorey's visits have a tangible impact on residents’ moods.

“She’s great with the residents, she's great with their hair cuts, she helps them out tremendously, she’s here every Thursday,” says Corrine King, concierge at Pine Ridge Alzheimer’s Special Care.

For Gorey, her goal is to help people reconnect with themselves or how they once cared for themselves, even as their physical abilities change.

She declines to disclose the mobile salon's annual revenue, however Gorey contends that business has grown year over year, despite natural turnover among senior clients.

Bookings for the mobile salon vary between 25 to 50 appointments per week on average, she says. Most of Gorey’s weekdays are spent visiting adult family homes and regular clients, with Thursdays reserved for Pine Ridge. If she falls behind, she finishes appointments on Saturdays and takes weekends off when possible.

Gorey doesn't rely on traditional advertising to grow her mobile hair salon business, she says. Aside from a handful of Facebook posts, her business has expanded almost entirely through word of mouth among nurses, caregivers, and families searching for ways to support the self-care needs of those who can’t easily leave their homes.

The idea for her mobile business took shape during a period when Gorey herself became homebound, she explains. After a serious illness and surgery, she spent three months recovering at home while receiving regular visits from nurses.

“In that three-month time, I was thinking, what else could I do?” Gorey says. “So I prayed and prayed, and, you know, God sent me mobile beautician.”

During her recovery, Gorey says she began organizing the logistics of her business. The nurses caring for her became her first source of referrals.

“They were actually the ones that started spreading the word,” she says.

She attributes trust as the reason many of her clients continue to call her back. Gorey says she considers them friends rather than clients.

“Clients like to come back to you when you show interest in them, not just their hair,” Gorey says. “We're not just hairdressers. Sometimes we're therapists, sometimes we’re just there to listen.”

Looking ahead, Gorey says she's interested in expanding to serve dedicated Alzheimer's and dementia-focused senior communities that don't have an existing stylist available.

"These moments of connection, conversation, and care remind them they are seen, valued, and loved," she says. "Knowing I can bring comfort and joy to their lives, and peace of mind to their families, is truly rewarding."