Excerpts

George Leventhal, Ph.D.
“The climate that is set by elected leaders and the appropriations that are provided by legislative bodies are the biggest determinants of whether we can place more people in housing.”

Jennifer Speight
“With homelessness, there are so many prejudgments and unwillingness to be receptive to the human side of it. But if I hadn’t gone through this, I don't know if my perceptions would have changed so easily and so fluidly. My experience helped me see the light.”

Tecoy Bailey-Wade

“I became homeless. There were things going on in my life where I just couldn't go home anymore and so I hung out in the street, living from pillar to post. I did that for almost fifteen years of my life.”

Jim Zidar
“Things just started to slide downhill. It was like being in a Kafka novel. It was an absolute nightmare.”

Lynn Rose

“What's exciting is we have seen the efforts and the fruits of our labor really show a decline in the number of people experiencing homelessness.”

Gordon Brown, Ph.D.

“We started with a subpopulation of people experiencing homelessness – veterans. We found every single veteran who was homeless and found homes for all of them. That takes a lot of resources, a lot of coordination.”

Clifton Thompson

“I got a job through the shelter. And then they found a room for me. I was back on my feet thanks to that shelter.”

Ashley McSwain

“Women have quite a few different barriers than men have. And if you're going to work with this population, you have to acknowledge those barriers.”

Grimaldi-Francesca Sanchez

“We don’t need to pass judgment. We need to be offering mental health and other services to these individuals and get to the core reason they are homeless and then determine what kind of care and services they need.”

Aaron Howe

“We need to change the discourse around homelessness away from criminalization or clean up or harassment to one of a humane solution and funding services that work.”

Andre Wyche

“A homeless person is often under a lot of stress, especially when they don't know when they're going to eat, where they’re going to sleep, where they're going to take a bath.”

Denis Elis

“My life just made a complete stop. You kind of get lost. There's no direction. You don't know what's going on and what's going to happen.”

Marlene Aiyejinme

“Being on the street, I got robbed a lot. I got raped. I didn't care if I lived or died.”

Wanda Steptoe

“Children who are experiencing homelessness have a tough time in school because their parents may not know how to provide the support they need to be successful.”

Will Gundlach

“Things started to go my way after a while. Somewhere deep inside, I felt hope. There was something that was moving me forward. I could just feel it. I got to be someone of worth again.”

Heather Thomas-Wyche

“Our family was considered the fortunate homeless. Even though we lost everything, we went straight from where we were into a transitional housing program.”