#atlantahomeless

[blessedcareintanational]

COVID-19 homeless women and children feeding program. Blessed Care International Foundation in partnership with LV Institute #photooftheday #helpingothers #donation #homelessveteran #streetphotography #tampaflorida #tampa #homelessfamilies #givingback #outdoors #endinghomelessness #empoweringwomen #donations #beauty #glowup #levelup #donate #atlantacharity #atlantahomelessness #atlantahomeless #socialworker #homesweethome #fundraising #atlantaevents #doublethedonation #alpharettaga #elevatesocialwork #idsc #ngo #nonprofit https://www.instagram.com/p/CPNWR5FD77T/?utm_medium=tumblr

[omanxl1]

Check The Perspective: Life Is Hectic (Part Seven)

Check The Perspective: Life Is Hectic (Part Seven)

We’re back to regular scheduled programming per this so called Terrible / Terrific Tuesday where things can go either way! We’re claiming the terrific outcome, inspired by yesterday’s MLK Day celebration! Bishop Michael Curry said we need a revival and love is the way while at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, so  we’re ready to roll, we’re on our way! Check out the life celebration, check the…

[goldiebelleforever]

#Repost @goodhumancampaign COLLECT YOUR SOCKS NOW!!! And drop them off at @kupcakerie November 19 from 4-7!!!! #eastpoint #atlanta #eastpointatl #atlantahomeless #homelessinatlanta

[drawchange]

#REPOST @drawchange5k: Huge thank you to @_gaatlanta for sponsoring our 5th Annual #drawchange5k: Run for Art, Run for Kids! If you have a desire to learn & grow in the rapidly growing technology industry - check out their classes today. Find out more info about classes and workshops at https://ift.tt/2xvMiM7 . Want to join our mission to #makeadifference and #endhomelessness? We are seeking corporate and local sponsors for the #drawchange5k coming up this October! Display your brand for all to see at our largest fundraising event of the year. Email race@drawchange.org to receive more information! . . . . . #sponsorship #sponsortoday #registertoday #nonprofit #nonprofitatlanta #atlantahomeless #runforkids #fundraiser #running #piedmontpark #run #atl5k #makeadifference #atlanta5k #instarunner #community #finishline #runnersworld #forthechildren #atlantaevents #atlhalfmarathon #funrun #runforfun #atlanta #supportchildren via Instagram https://ift.tt/2QHVTIl

[thewyliecollective-blog]

BARBIE

I’m 20 years old.

Everyone tells me I’m way to young to be homeless.

I guess it’s my fault. I tried to grow up too fast. 

I came to Atlanta, from Florida after getting in too many fights with my family. I decided that I was going to try things on my own. It didn’t really work out the way I thought it would.

I thought I was going to come up here, get a good job and everything was going to be perfect… instead, I came to Atlanta with almost nothing, knowing almost no one.

I couldn’t get a job and I couldn’t find a place to stay.

I tried to go back home, but my family, they don’t want me back. They say I need to learn my lesson, and I have; people really need to appreciate things when they have them. 

[thewyliecollective-blog]

LATTER MORE

When kids are little they have these great big dreams about what they are going to be when they grow up. 

They say, “I’m going to be a fire-fighter, I’m going to be a police man, I’m going to be something. I am going to matter.”

….no one  wants to grow up to be homeless and addicted to crack living on a piece of cardboard behind a dumpster. I didn’t ask to be this way. I didn’t want to be this way. I became this way…I just am…

I guess my experience with homelessness really started when I was 21. that’s when it started, when it really started, but I guess I was on my way long before that.

I grew up in the projects with my mom and brother over on the west end. 

My mom really tried with us, she really did. We were poor, but she did everything she could for us. She loved us more than anything. I didn’t end up like this because I grew up poor in the projects, I ended up this way because I was a rebel. I didn’t want to behave, I didn’t want to conform; I just wanted to cause trouble.

I was sent to prison for the first time when I was 18. I’d been in a lot of trouble before that, but like I said, I was a rebel.

By 21 I was surviving off of doing small work, living in $25 a night rooms. I wasn’t quite homeless at that point, but I was very close.

I ended up in California after trying to join the army under my brother’s name. California started off as a good place for me. Life was stable there.

I had a wife and a daughter, and for some time, everything seemed like it was going to be okay, but I still didn’t have a stable job.

I was still hustling work, which had always worked when I was the only one I was taking care of, it wasn’t enough to support a family. 

The wife and I were always fighting, about money, work, and how there wasn’t enough of either…that’s when I turned back to the bottle.

To make a long, painful story short, I drank them away. The best part of my life, was gone.

After that, I hit rock bottom. I was homeless, really homeless for the first time.  I did every drug I could to forget about how terrible my life had become, and in doing that I made everything worse. I was a drunk, hooked on crack. I would pass out every night behind dumpsters, laying in my own waste.

It was then, at the darkest point in my life, I started to do some terrible things, things only God can forgive me for.

During that time I was involved in a robbery at this gas station in Arizona… well during the robbery, the girl working there, she got hurt. 

Hurting that girl cost 5 of my life in the pen.

It took me all that to realize I was going down a dead- end street. I spent those five years doing everything I could to change, and I did. I got sober. It was the first time I’d been sober since I was a teenager. I found God and I found myself, two things I had been missing for a very long time. A lot of people shake their heads when I say I found God, but you must understand, I was in a very bad place in my life. I needed something to believe in to make reason of everything I had done and I needed something to give me hope, God gave me both of those. 

Those five years in prison were very hard for me, to really realize in a sober state of mind what I had done. But, honestly; I don’t doubt they were any less hard for the family of the girl I killed.

I decided the only way for me to continue living my life was to dedicate it in service to helping others. 

When I was released in 2008. That’s when I came back to Atlanta to start over. I wanted to use my experience and the things that I have done in my life to help others in need and to keep them from going down the same path. 

I was still homeless then, so I went to the homeless shelters. 

The first shelter I went to had certain housing requirements. To be housed in one of their homes, you have to be part of this 12 step AA program, I had already been sober for 5 years. I didn’t need to be part of any 12 step program…so I basically didn’t qualify... because I was sober.

I ended up finding my way to peachtree and pine. Here, they let me help other people. It’s hard for people that are in our position, to have experienced what we experience, to really communicate with some of the volunteers at these shelters. They can’t understand where we’re coming from because they haven’t been there, but I have. I understand. I can give them hope.

[thewyliecollective-blog]

FORREST

I’ve lived in Georgia all my life. I was born and raised in Savannah.

I moved to Atlanta in 1999 after getting my G.E.D. My first job in Atlanta was at a construction company. I made pretty good money for a while. I moved into a house in Edgewood, off La France. I kept my job at the construction company until they went under in 2000.

When the construction company closed, I got a job as a forklift tech at a mineral research company. I kept that job for six years until they closed and relocated to Texas. That was in 2006, when the economy started falling apart. I couldn’t find a stable job anywhere.

I tried hustling and working under the table, doing any work I possibly could. That worked at first, but it wasn’t reliable. Eventually I ended up loosing my house.

I didn’t become homeless from being an alcoholic, or getting addicted to crack, I just fell on hard times. I still do whatever work I can, but living out here makes you rough. I am not sure I will ever be able to become a part of ‘normal’ society again, but I still try.

[thewyliecollective-blog]

RANDY

In a cool but sunny early December day I was engaging in some narrative collection and after many hostile responses to my ethnographic approach to understand how others are living their lives in the same city, I came across a middle aged man named Randy. I was greeted by a smile and an invitation to sit next to him in a small patch of dry grass in Hurt Park. 

Randy spoke rapidly and openly about himself. He is an Atlanta native who has never lived anywhere outside the metro-Atlanta area and has 4 sisters and 4 brothers throughout the city.  He recognizes that his current life situation is one that came from misfortunes and as a form to test his ability to stay positive and close to God. Randy has done it all. A restaurant cook for over a decade, handyman, painter and active member of various Baptists churches. 

He went through hard times during his early years by experimenting with drugs and abusing alcohol which lead him to his first and only arrest. Upon being released from prison he had a  difficult time transitioning into a normative lifestyle of 9-5 working days and riding cars great distances to get to work and pay for rent. This is incredibly difficult for someone who is not given a guide that increases their chances of succeeding in a competitive capitalist society facing economic depression. 

A longtime friend and Pastor came to his aid, pointing Randy to the  Johnson Ferry Baptist Church which needed a janitor and handyman. However,  Randy faced yet another problem as he was not able to transport himself to and from work because he lived various miles from the church. Public transportation in Atlanta is primarily run by MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority). An entirely privately run transportation company that does not receive any funding from the Georgia government. 

Once again, his friend and Pastor helped him find him a car through donations by church members and finally Randy was on the road to maintaing a full time job and housing. Randy continued his spiritual growth and development by becoming an active member of Bible study sessions and attending church every week. Randy is proud of his skills and his ability to work harder than someone half his age and is completely aware of his abilities and talents. After 3 years Randy was beginning to create a sense of community in his job and expanded his social space in church through the implementation of a Bible study that would have been directed by him, however life had other plans. 

The engine in his car suddenly went out of power and he could not afford to fix it or buy another vehicle. He remembers calling his boss and trying to explain to him his situation, but his efforts were ignored and was fired without any consideration how this would affect his life.  It's been 4 months since Randy lost his job and has had to come back to living in the streets of Atlanta. 

He wakes up every day at 5 in the morning to make sure he gets his high blood pressure pills and checks on his food stamp status hoping that this will be the day he has the ability to buy food from a grocery store.

Randy calls himself an evangelist. All the trails and tribulations he's lived have shaped who he is and how he handles his current situation. He emphasizes, very persistently, the need to reject negativity in order to come out of this experience a stronger individual. 

I learned a lot from Randy, but apart from it all I learned the great power of a smile and a voice. He utilizes his life experience and his charisma as a way to change people's perspective on what he represents.  A dedicated individual who is in constant search of the light under a dim street lamp. 

We ought to learn endlessly from our brothers and sisters. Let's sit on a patch of grass and listen to the stories that construct meaning and reality.