What a great example of collaboration for transformation…
About a week or so ago, I was out on a city walk with a group and we stopped by Woodruff park to see how everyone was doing. As we were wandering through the park visiting with several of our homeless friends, a man asked my wife if he could use her phone to make an important call. She quickly responded, “Absolutely.” The gentleman then introduced himself as David Davis and began dialing his number.
Once he completed his call, he handed the phone back to Alicia and then began explaining his situation to her. After a few minutes of his story, Alicia called me over to see how I could help. Mr. Davis was in a position we find all too many people in. He was being evicted from his apartment because the land lord is a crazy drug user and wanted him out for no real reason. He had been on the street for three months prior to finding the apartment and did not want to end up right back on the street after staying there for only a week.
Mr. Davis receives a SSI check and is on a fixed income. He had tried time and time again to receive HUD housing, but kept being denied because of an assault charge that has been on his record for 10+ years. He and all his stuff were about to be on the street in two days if something did not happen quickly.
On a side note: What is a man in this position supposed to do??? Society has made it almost impossible for convicts, sex offenders, etc… to get back into society. I digress…
As a final act of desperation, Mr. Davis filed again with the HUD housing to see if he could get in. I don’t know why, but this time it went through. To be honest, I can’t believe it went through. And, it only took three days.
Yesterday, I drove to the apartment that Mr. Davis had been evicted from and helped him load all of his earthly belongings into my car. When I got there he was waiting outside with all of his stuff. As a matter of fact, he had stayed outside with his stuff all night because it had been placed on the curb by his landlord. We then moved his belongings to his new apartment.
When we got done moving all of his stuff into his one bedroom apartment that is no bigger than my office, Mr. Davis said, “No more shelter”. He was home.
I share this story for two reasons...
1. To encourage you with positive stories like these that happen day to day in my life.
... and ...
2. To show you how powerful a simple act of compassion can be. Alicia’s small act of compassion toward Mr. Davis lead to a chain reaction of love. By just being available to let a man use her phone Alicia played a role in getting Mr. Davis home.
This story should serve as a reminder to all to love others with our actions no matter how big or small the act may seem. Live Love to others and see how your life will make a difference.
I can hardly contain my excitement. This morning was one of the best mornings I have had in a long time. Each day at SHO we fight against the seemingly never-ending curse of homelessness. We do everything we can to help people get out of homelessness and become thriving parts of the community again. Sometimes this ongoing battle can feel like we are making no progress. However, this morning was a different story.
About two months ago I had the pleasure of meeting with the Executive Director of the Regional Commission on Homelessness from the
When I learned of the program, I became extremely excited and wanted to know how some of my homeless friends from SHO could take advantage this awesome opportunity. Monday of this week, Philip and I had a follow up meeting to put the final pieces in place. We decided that on Thursday we would start with an initial run of ten people.
Today was Thursday…
When I got to SHO this morning, eight of the ten were there waiting for me to arrive. They probably slept on the steps last night, they were so excited. Nobody could process the reality that they were going to have a bed to sleep in tonight. I asked one of the guys, “When was the last time you slept in a bed?” He said, “A year and a half.”
Then the guys began to make light of what was about to happen to them. They joked about not having to wake up in the middle of the night because it’s raining or because someone was coughing on them in a shelter. I wished I could have put it all on film for everyone to see. It was beautiful…
I am excited because I am in love with these people. Some of these guys have become great friends. Mrs. Carmen is one of the first people I met at SHO. I deeply love them all. Love is a powerful force.
Love has the ability to motivate people to act on the behalf of others. When we love, we die to ourselves and allow it to dictate our actions. It was love that motivated Philip, Safehouse Outreach, The Regional Commission on Homelessness, The United Way of Atlanta and I to collaborate together to develop this solution for these ten people.
So, today love wins! Even if tomorrow, every person in the program ends up leaving it or the number of homeless in
... here are my friends that are giving the program a try... Good Luck Everyone!!!
Wow! The three weeks stretch from Christmas to New Year is a very difficult time for me to stay focused. As a result I have not had much to say about love over the past several weeks. Most of my attention lately has been placed on simply loving my friends and family. Rather than focusing on what I could learn from my experiences I simply took them in for all they were worth.
However, I did manage to direct my creative efforts towards something else. One night over the holiday break I was surfing the internet late at night and bumped into something called Squidoo.com. As I began to surf some of the pages I quickly realized that this is a way of knowledge networking with others. You have heard of social networking??? This is knowledge networking.
Being curious in homelessness, I immediately did a search for homelessness in
Over the next few days to come I imputed everything I could think of concerning homelessness in
If you are interested at all in the homeless cause please check out the website. I will constantly be adding new materials and keeping the page updated. I originally started the page so I could have one location for the information I have on homelessness. Hopefully, the resource will develop into something that is beneficial for many.
Visit www.homelessatlanta.com and let me know what you think.
