Come walk with me

Homelessness is a multi-faceted problem, there are a whole lot of problems that spin-off of that. Problems that affect our city and state budgets, our city atmosphere. The problem is being stuck in a dependent relationship with the government because you are below the poverty line. The problems come with being harassed because you are below the poverty line and come in the form of court cases, prison, juvenile detention, foster care,  mental crisis, and (the most infamous) addiction. 

Multi-faceted problems require multi-factor answers.  I am long-winded, so let me try to shorten this up for you. You, your wife, and your kids live in town, but your house was foreclosed on, you lost your job, your wife got sick; and now the minivan and a storage unit are all that y’all have left to build another life with. You reach out to some shelters, but quickly realize that addicts and families don’t belong together so you keep to yourselves in the van.  You park it where it’s not obvious. However, you live in a Hostile Architect city, so of course the police knock on the window at 3 am. You comply, but they know from training that you are homeless because you use drugs or you drink, so they hold you in the back of the police unit with your wife in another. They search the minivan, asking your kids questions: does daddy have a gun? Where is Mommy’s pipe? When they find nothing they decide that they have to make numbers anyway, they are a business too. So they decide to first threaten you with a DUI, depending on how you act next will determine what happens next. Either you beg for mercy and they give you a ticket or summons for a BS barely there ordinance, or you stand up for yourself and you take that ride downtown. Oh and by the way, they called CPS on y’all too; who even though homelessness is not a crime, will fabricate a reason to open a case on you. Now you have nothing because you missed the payment on the storage and the transmission went out on the van. If you didn’t drink by now I bet you might be tempted under this load. Now let’s add to the story a prior record, to which the law says you have paid your debt to society, however, law enforcement and many community members say  you should be punished every chance they get to give it to you. So you are back in jail and lose the kids to CPS and they go on to become aged-out fosters who are thrown into the streets to repeat the cycle. 

Now by the Grace of God our wife crosses paths with the Hootenanny down by the park she too the kids to play at. When she comes into the converted schoolie, it has a couple of workstations equipped with WIFI and computers, a couple of showers, about 10 beds, and is pulling a catering trailer used not only for events but a buy-one give-one program that will allow patrons to buy one of our plates for themselves and give one to someone else. Someone buys her and the kids lunch anonymously. Then she talks to our intake specialist where she learns that your family can go to Camp Holliday as a whole unit. When you first get to Camp Holliday, your whole family meets with a counselor. Who will work with your family to establish a plan of action to overcome your obstacles as well as establishing a plan of action that leads to your dream life. The realization of every plan is the resources one has to put it into action. Now you are offered a series of programs that your whole family will have the opportunity to participate in from financial literacy to mental health and wellness. Participants can then be matched with volunteers from corporations like Walmart to learn from the personal and professional experiences of our volunteers.  Imagine by participating you may actually get the opportunity to meet the leaders of Walmart Corporation as a whole. The part of the plan that we believe will be of the most value is hustle redefinition. An opportunity to put into action the products or services you choose to build your dream life with. Tree Street will serve as a community meeting ground where the community can come shopping with the participants and support their new budding businesses. Imagine utilizing “Atomic Habits” as a way of achieving professional and personal goals simultaneously to build your best life and as a family team to boot. The growth of the participant’s business opens the doorway to be awarded community reinvestment grants that will allow them to revitalize parts of the city that are considered to be in need of repair.