Many homeless women can’t afford food and housing, let alone necessary feminine items like bras and menstrual hygiene products. Yet, these products are essential for any woman to feel good about herself, since they boost one’s dignity.
Dana Marlowe, a mother of two who runs a disability advocacy and consulting company, decided to do something about it. Since homeless shelters rarely receive donations of bras and feminine hygiene products, Marlowe started the organization Support the Girls. During her free time, Marlowe collects these important items, organizing house pick-ups and dropping everything at shelters in the Washington, D.C., area where she lives.
So far, she’s collected more than 8,000 bras and almost 30,000 feminine hygiene products. Learn more about what Marlowe does and how she got the idea by watching the video above.
WATCH: These Yoga Teachers Empower Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Victims to Reclaim Their Lives
Tag: Homelessness
Wrongful Conviction Spurs Texas to Reform Police Lineups, Scientist Discovers Efficient Way to Restore Coral Reefs and More
Recognition, The New Yorker
Texas has the reputation of being tough on crime and even harsher on those found guilty. For those who binged Netflix’s recent “Making a Murderer,” the tale of Tim Cole, an Army veteran who, because of incorrect eyewitness identification by the victim herself, was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault in 1986 (and died while incarcerated), will make it seem like our criminal justice system is broken. Fortunately, there is a silver lining to this tragic story.
This Village of Tiny Houses Is Giving Seattle’s Homeless a Place to Live, Fast Co. Exist
With approximately 10,000 people living on the streets, it’s an understatement to say that there’s a homelessness crisis happening in Seattle. Since affordable and free housing for the homeless is a costly endeavor, the nonprofit Low Income Housing Institute needed to get creative. Their idea? Tiny houses that can house a small family, yet cost just $2,000 to construct.
A Coral Reef Revival, The Atlantic
Helping a century’s old coral reef come back to life certainly sounds like science fiction, but it’s exactly what David Vaughan, Ph.D., is doing off the coast of south Florida. He and his team of scientists are restoring reefs by producing thousands of new pieces of coral using microfragmentation — a new process that he developed by accident.
How Does the Big Easy Maintain Its Success Housing Homeless Veterans?
Prompted by a call from First Lady Michelle Obama to end veteran homelessness by 2015, New Orleans, Houston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia and 15 other cities as well as the entire Commonwealth of Virginia met that challenge. However, you’ll still spot former service members sleeping on the streets of each of those locales today.
Homelessness, after all, is not a static challenge. As quick as a dozen former warriors are placed in housing, a Greyhound bus could drop an Iraq War veteran off in Mobile, Ala., with no place to sleep, for example, or a Gulf War soldier in Syracuse, N.Y., could lose his job and then his apartment. “The truth is that ending veteran homelessness requires daily work,” Sam Joel, a policy advisor who assists New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in leading the city’s work to end veteran homelessness, tells NationSwell. “We did what we sought to do. But it’s one thing to reach a goal, and another thing to sustain it.”
As volunteers fan out across urban areas this month to log a point-in-time homeless count, mayors and policymakers await figures on whether the systems they created were effective enough to keep veterans housed. (Last January, 47,725 veterans nationwide were homeless.) The exact definition of how to “end homelessness” varies; the gold standard — achieving “functional zero” — provided by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness generally defines it as offering interim shelter and then permanent housing to every homeless veteran who has been identified, plus creating the capacity to house any newly homeless vets as quickly as possible, usually in a 90-day period.
Approaching the one-year anniversary of its achievement, New Orleans is confident they’ll be pleased with their updated numbers. For one, the Big Easy now maintains an “active list,” that tracks every homeless veteran by name and the details of when and where they checked in for services — so it’s pretty much aware of any population fluctuations.
The city’s data is also a metric of how far it has come since Hurricane Katrina’s devastation. Back in 2010, when Landrieu took office, nearly 4,500 people (down from 117,600 in 2007) were still stranded without homes in the Crescent City. “In New Orleans, we are all too familiar with the feeling of homelessness. After Hurricane Katrina, literally all of us were without a home,” Landrieu wrote in an op-ed. By last January, only 1,700 remained homeless. Shortly after, New Orleans was certified as the first major city to end veteran homelessness.
Many people ask what’s the Big Easy’s secret? Joel says there are three: “partnership, partnership, partnership.” Previously, services overlapped and communication lagged. Today, local, state and federal agencies come together to collaborate on the same goal.
With the help of active duty military and other veterans, New Orleans sweeps every block to find homeless vets and usually connects them to permanent housing within a few weeks, Joel reports. While unable to provide an exact figure of days that pass before being housed, Joel says the average is below the original 30-day goal.
As New Orleans is pioneering best practices for maintaining an end to veteran homelessness, other local and state governments are hoping to achieve the same. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness plays a key role by sharing strategies and data across communities, facilitating collaborations, checking in to “make sure we’re being as strategic as possible” and ensuring the momentum is sustained nationwide, says Robert Pulster, regional coordinator for the council.
“I think there was a moral imperative to support men and women who had served in the military, to see they were well cared for,” Pulster says. With leadership from the White House, plus bipartisan support from Congress, the country has an unique opportunity to end veteran homelessness nationwide.
More importantly, however, is the idea that ending veteran homelessness is the first step in ending homelessness of all types. “We realized we could learn a lot about how to build the kind of collaborative systems and how we use resources to serve the entire population,” he continues. It doesn’t matter whether they’re led by a strong mayor or governor, cities like New Orleans prove that ending veteran homelessness is both possible and sustainable.
MORE: One Man, His T-Shirts and an Honorable Mission to House Homeless Veterans
10 Outstanding Solutions of 2015
In a year when policing controversies, mass shootings and debates over immigration have dominated the headlines and discourse, there’s a group of inspirational pioneers at work. Not all of these individuals, policy makers and entrepreneurs are household names, but they all are improving this country by developing new ways to solve America’s biggest challenges. Here, NationSwell’s favorite solutions of the year.
THE GUTSY DAD THAT STARTED A BUSINESS TO HELP HIS SON FIND PURPOSE
Eighty percent of the workers at Rising Tide Car Wash, located in Parkland, Fla., are on the autism spectrum. Started by the father-and-son team of John and Tom D’Eri, Rising Tide gives their son and brother, Andrew, who was identified as an autistic individual at the age of three, and its other employees the chance to lead a fulfilling life. John and Tom determined that the car wash industry is a good match for those with autism since they’re more likely to be engaged by detailed, repetitive processes than those not on the spectrum. [ph]
THE ALLSTARS THAT ARE TACKLING SOME OF AMERICA’S GREATEST CHALLENGES
The six NationSwell AllStars — Karen Washington, Eli Williamson, Rinku Sen, Seth Flaxman, DeVone Boggan and Amy Kaherl — are encouraging advancements in education and environmental sustainability, making government work better for its citizens, engaging people in national service, advancing the American dream and supporting our veterans. Click here to read and see how their individual projects are moving America forward. [ph]
THE INDIANA COUNTY THAT HAS DONE THE MOST TO REDUCE INCOME INEQUALITY IN AMERICA
The Midwest exurb of Boone County, Ind., has reduced the ratio of the top 20th percentile’s earnings compared to the bottom 80th percentile by 23 percent — the largest decline for any American county with more than 50,000 residents and an achievement stumped county officials. NationSwell pieced together the story of how a land battle and a statewide tax revolt altered the course of Boone County. Find out exactly how it happened here. [ph]
THE TESLA CO-FOUNDER THAT’S ELECTRIFYING GARBAGE TRUCKS
Ian Wright’s new venture, Wrightspeed, is far less glamorous than his previous venture creating luxury electric sedans. But Wrightspeed, which is installing range-extended electric powertrains (the generators that electric vehicles run on) in medium- and heavy-duty trucks for companies like the Ratto Group, Sonoma and Marin counties’ waste hauler, and shipping giant FedEx, could have a greater impact on the environment than electrifying personal vehicles. Click here to learn how. [ph]
THE ORGANIZATION THAT IS TURNING A NOTORIOUS PROJECT INTO AN URBAN VILLAGE
Los Angeles’s large, 700-unit public housing development Jordan Downs consists of 103 identical buildings. Entryways to the two-story beige structures are darkened with black soot and grime, and the doors and windows are crossed with bars. Soon, the dilapidated complex will be revitalized by Joseph Paul, Jr., and his outreach team from SHIELDS for Families, which provides counseling, education and vocational training services. Read more about the plan, which calls for recreational parks and retail on site and would double the amount of available housing with 700 more units tiered at affordable and market rates. [ph]
THE HARDWORKING GROUP THAT’S RESTORING THE SHORELINE OF AMERICA’S LAST FRONTIER
Chris Pallister and his small, devoted crew are leading the largest ongoing marine cleanup effort on the planet. Since 2002, Pallister’s organization, Gulf of Alaska Keeper, has been actively cleaning beaches in Prince William Sound and the Northern Gulf Coast. The nonprofit’s five boats, seasonal crew of 12 and dozens of regular volunteers has removed an estimated 2.5 million pounds of marine debris (mostly plastic items washed ashore from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) from more than 1,500 miles of coastline. [ph]
THE STATE THAT’S ENDING HOMELESSNESS WITH ONE SIMPLE IDEA
Utah set the ambitious goal to end homelessness in 2015. As the state’s decade-long “Housing First” program, an initiative to place the homeless into supportive housing without any prerequisites, wraps up this year, it’s already reduced chronic homelessness (those with deeper disabling conditions, like substance abuse or schizophrenia, who had been on the streets for a year or longer or four times within three years) by 72 percent and is on track to end it altogether by early next year. Read more about the initiative here. [ph]
THE RESIDENT THAT’S REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS’S MOST DEVASTATED WARD
New Orleans native Burnell Cotlon wants to feed his 3,000 neighbors. So he’s turned a two-story building that was destroyed by catastrophic flooding during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (along with most of the Lower 9th Ward community) into a shopping plaza. Already, he’s opened a barbershop, a convenience store, and a full-service grocery store in a neighborhood that has been identified as a food desert. [ph]
THE MAN THAT’S GIVING CAREERS TO UNEMPLOYED MILITARY VETERANS
“They had our backs, let’s keep the shirts on theirs” is more than just a motto for Mark Doyle. It’s the business model on which he built Rags of Honor, his silk-screen printing company based in Chicago that provides employment and other services to veterans. In the three years since its inception, Rags of Honor has grown from four employees to 22, all but one of whom are veterans at high risk of homelessness. [ph]
THE PRESIDENT THAT’S PRESERVING OUR ENVIRONMENT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
After promising to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal our planet during his 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama has faltered on environmental legislation during his first term, preferring to expend his political capital on the Affordable Care Act. But the 44th president’s use of regulatory authority and his agreement with China likely ensure his place in the pantheon of modern environmental champions. Here’s why. [ph]
Homeless and Jobless, This Man Found Hope Running 26.2 Miles
Kevin Gonzalez, a 24-year-old from the South Bronx, had been training for the marathon his entire life — he just didn’t know it. Gonzalez didn’t regularly go on 18-mile training runs on the weekend nor did he spend hours on the treadmill; in fact, he wasn’t a runner at all. But his tough upbringing prepped him to endure a long haul, not just a sprint.
After a pre-dawn run, Gonzalez met with NationSwell recently in the front lobby of the Bowery Mission, a men’s residential recovery center in East Harlem, N.Y. After living at the shelter for a few months, Gonzalez signed up with Back on My Feet, a program that uses running to instill responsibility and self-sufficiency, with the ultimate goal of running the 2015 New York City Marathon. Gonzalez heard that the nonprofit’s morning runs had translated into 2,000 jobs and 1,400 housing placements for homeless participants, so he laced his running shoes to test whether he could be the organization’s next success story.
“I went from running the streets to running to save my life,” Gonzalez says. “Now I knew what I wanted to do and why it mattered. I had the dedication and a goal to achieve.”
That feeling of determination was new for Gonzalez, who was orphaned at a young age and spent his childhood in the foster care system. From age 17, he’s been on his own. With a minimum-wage job, Gonzalez was able to pay for his own apartment for a year before moving with his girlfriend’s family. Struggling with addictions — alcohol, drugs and cigarettes — he lost a job and was kicked out. Without anywhere to go, Gonzalez was living on the street.
His first run wasn’t easy. Another Back on My Feet member ran alongside Gonzalez for the whole hour to make sure he wasn’t alone. But that guy wanted to chat, something that Gonzalez, who was struggling to breathe, found impossible. Six months since he started, a morning run has become part of the routine, and Gonzalez’s lungs have greater capacity.
“Nothing is as relaxing as breaking a quick sweat,” Gonzalez says. “It helps with my stress and anxieties. I feel like I’m 18 again. I’m in the best shape of my life.”
The weekend before the Big Apple’s marathon last month, on one of his final practice workouts, Gonzalez stumbled and sprained his ankle. He had trained so hard and the injury didn’t seem that bad, so Gonzalez continued with his marathon plan. With his toe on the starting line in Staten Island, his shoulders were tense with nervousness. Using the resilience he’d built and strengthened over so many years, Gonzalez pushed his worries about the injury aside.
When he passed the 18th mile and saw the cheering supporters from the shelter at 110th Street, he knew he could make it. Four and a half hours after starting, he crossed the finish line in Central Park.
With one marathon down, Gonzalez already has his sights on his next one. He now has a job walking dogs, and he expects to enroll in school next year. He’s planning to run the marathon again in November 2016, cutting an hour off his time.
“I’d say running has saved my life,” Gonzalez says. “I found hope. Things are brighter than ever.”
MORE: The Running Program That’s Pulled 1,300 People Out of Homelessness
This Veteran Refuses To Leave His Unemployed and Debt-Ridden Comrades Behind
When Eli Williamson returned from two deployments to the Middle East, his hometown of Chicago felt at times like a foreign battleground, the memory of desert roads more familiar than Windy City central thoroughfares. As he relearned the city, Williamson noticed a strange similarity between veterans like himself and the young people growing up in tough parts of Chicago. Too many had witnessed violence, and they had little support to cope with the trauma.
Applying the timeworn principle of leaving no soldier, sailor, airman or marine behind, Williamson co-founded Leave No Veteran Behind (LNVB), a national nonprofit focused on securing education and employment for our warriors. Williamson formed the organization based on “just real stupid” and “crazy” idealism: “You know what?” he says. “I can make a difference.” Since work began in 2008, with a measly operating budget of $4,674 to help pay off student loans, LNVB has eliminated around $150,000 of school debt and provided 750 transitional jobs, Williamson says.
“Coming out of the military, every individual is going to have his or her challenges,” says Williamson, who served as a psychological operations specialist and an Arabic linguist in Iraq in 2004 and in Afghanistan in 2007. “We’ve seen veterans with substance abuse issues, homelessness issues.” Additionally, at least one in five veterans suffer from PTSD, and almost 50,000 are homeless and 573,000 are unemployed.
Williamson started the group with his childhood friend Roy Sartin. They first met in high school, when they joined choir and band together. “I think we’ve been arguing like old women every since,” Williamson says. Both joined the U.S. Army Reserves while at Iowa’s Luther College and were mobilized to active duty during their senior year after the Twin Towers fell. Williamson finished his education at the Special Warfare Training Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, while Sartin put his learning on hold.
Upon return, both struggled with crippling interest rates on their student loans. Sartin received a call from the loan company saying that he needed to make a $20,000 payment. “Although I had the funds, it was just enough to get myself back together. So, for me, the transition wasn’t as tough, but I was one of the lucky ones.” Williamson got a bill for $2,200 only 22 days before the balance was due. Desperate, he took to the streets playing music to cover the costs.
After talking with other vets, the two realized that many didn’t qualify for the military’s debt repayment programs. That’s when they started going out to financial sources for “retroactive scholarships” for our country’s defenders. And they sought employment opportunities for former military members to help cover the rest.
Jobs and debt relief for our nation’s warriors are the main focus of LNVB, but the group oversees several initiatives, including S.T.E.A.M. Corps, which pairs vets with science, technology, engineering, arts, and math experience with at-risk youth. More than 200 students have graduated from S.T.E.A.M., but Williamson, director of veteran affairs at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, points to a more intangible benefit of his non-profit’s work: the ability for veterans “to articulate a larger vision of themselves … is our advocacy mission,” he says.
“Veterans can paint a vision for where our country needs to be, and the only reason we can do that is because you realize that you are part of something larger than yourself,” Williamson adds. “That’s a fundamental value that veterans can share, as they leave military, with the communities that they come back to.” For those who’ve just returned home from Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, in other words, service is just beginning.
The Running Program That’s Pulled 1,300 People Out of Homelessness
At 5:45 a.m., on a recent Friday morning, a group of about 20 homeless guys warmed up in a parking lot across the street from three shelters in East Harlem. In a circle, they did jumping jacks, twisted their torsos and touched their toes. Fifteen minutes later, they huddled up, chanted the Serenity Prayer (“God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change….”) and took off running. As they criss-crossed the bridges between Manhattan and the Bronx during their four-mile trek, the sun’s strengthening rays — bright but not yet burning — reflected off the windows of nearby towering apartment buildings. The streets were nearly empty, and quiet, a rarity in The City That Never Sleeps.
Ryan [last name omitted] began jogging with the group, known as Back on My Feet, seven months ago. Never a runner, he always wondered what the big deal about it was. Ask him today, however, and he’ll tell you it’s “so natural, almost spiritual.” Moreover, running strengthens him and teaches him consistency. Less than a year after first hitting the pavement, Ryan completed a half-marathon and is studying to be a certified substance abuse counselor. As he looped around 138th Street onto the Madison Avenue Bridge, he thought he’d be ready for the NYC marathon a couple months away.
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Back on My Feet is a program that uses running to help the homeless get their lives back on track. In addition to connecting participants with housing and jobs, Back on My Feet is founded on the notion that running can change a person’s self-image. Early morning exercise, three days a week, provides an outlet for pent-up emotions and starts to change the way someone thinks about hard work.
If the concept seems hokey or contrived, the program’s numbers show that’s not the case. Back on My Feet’s program has reached 5,200 homeless individuals. They show up voluntarily for four out of every five runs — an 82.8 percent attendance rate. More than 1,900 have obtained employment, and 1,300 have moved into independent housing.
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Back on My Feet began in Philadelphia in 2007, on one of Anne Mahlum’s morning runs. A 26-year-old social entrepreneur with short bleach-blond hair, Mahlum started running a decade earlier, at age 16, to help cope with her father’s serious gambling addiction. Running as a teen in the City of Brotherly Love, she continually passed by a group of homeless men outside the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, near City Hall’s century-old white tower. In May 2007, she began to develop a friendship with them. By July, they started running with her.
Inspired, Mahlum convinced the Rescue Mission’s staff to let her form an official running club for men in the shelter. At first, nine guys signed up. In exchange, each received a brand-new, donated pair of running shoes, clothes and socks. Mahlum had only one requirement: Each person had to sign a “dedication contract,” committing them to showing up on time for a run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, respecting themselves and supporting their teammates.
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The rules were simple, but that was the point. “If we can change the way people see themselves, can we change the direction of their lives?” Mahlum asked. In her mind, running could function as a metaphor for getting one’s life back on track after experiencing homelessness. It takes the fear that someone who’s experienced homelessness feels about words like “housing,” “employment” and “sobriety” and turns that emotion into something manageable. Running teaches that every step forward takes you closer to that finish line, but also that you don’t get to the end unless you cross every mile marker along the route. Waking up so early every morning — whether the thermometer’s bubbling over or when it’s frozen solid — instills discipline and responsibility in the participants. They’re two valuable concepts, but both are hard to teach in the abstract. They need to be lived to be experienced.
After officially obtaining tax-exempt status, Mahlum’s running club grew into a nationwide organization with 50 employees and a $6.5 million operating budget. Today, Back on My Feet has more than 50 chapters in 11 cities. Since the group began recording miles in January 2009, its residential members have run more than 462,000 miles.
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Jerry, another person who participated in Friday’s outing, used to run with a chapter on the Upper West Side a couple years back and still occasionally runs with the East Harlem group as an alumni member. A few years ago, while receiving assistance from the Fortune Society, a nonprofit focused on supporting successful reentry from prison, he signed up for Back on My Feet’s program. Jerry, who asked that his last name not be used, says he showed up for his first run bitter about his disappointments and distrustful of other people. He didn’t understand why everyone in this group kept trying to hug him or why they kept saying that no one runs alone. The first mile was painful: He felt out of breath, partially because of medication he was taking and partially, he worried, because he was permanently out of shape.
But Jerry stuck with it. Despite a criminal record that meant certain employers never called him back, he landed a job as a doorman and an apartment in Harlem. He credits Back on My Feet with preparing him for success. Today, he’ll tell you that you don’t sprint at the start of a marathon, and you don’t try to win first place either. There’s accomplishment enough, he says, in finishing.
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This Man Walked Away From Wall Street. Now His Pizza Parlor Is Feeding Philadelphia’s Homeless
You can’t buy much for two dollars these days, but in Philadelphia, you can feed yourself and a homeless neighbor with just a couple of bucks.
After leaving a successful Wall St. career because he found it unfulfilling, owner Mason Wartman opened Rosa’s Fresh Pizza in late 2013. He had witnessed the popularity of the one-dollar pizza joints in New York City and decided that a the concept might work in his native Philadelphia.
“I knew that we would be feeding homeless people because we’d be providing affordable food,” says Wartman. “About three months into operation, a paying customer asked if he could pre-purchase a slice for a homeless person. And so I ran out, got a stack of Post-it Notes to remind myself and the employees that we could help someone out when they came in short.”
Before long, the walls of Rosa’s became covered in Post-it Notes. Each one signifies someone who has given a dollar so that that a homeless or hungry person can enjoy a meal at no-cost. The messages on some are simple; others have drawings or a friendly letter.
Each day, a few dozen homeless people file into Rosa’s to enjoy the kindness of their neighbors. In the last year, Wartman reports that this system has provided more than 14,000 free slices for Philadelphians in need.
“This is way more rewarding than what I used to do on Wall Street,” says Wartman. “I learn a ton everyday, I meet really cool people — homeless and not homeless. I get to see a positive difference being made in a city that I really love. So, what more could I ask for, right?”
This T-Shirt Could Be the Difference Between a Veteran Having a Home and Living on the Streets
“They had our backs, let’s keep the shirts on theirs” is more than just a motto for Mark Doyle. It’s the business model on which he built Rags of Honor, his veteran-operated business.
Originally a consultant, Doyle was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 as a forensic accountant for the Army. After returning to the U.S., he saw the same men and women who had given their lives for their country struggling to survive. In fact, only one quarter of returning soldiers between the ages of 19 and 25 were employed. Even worse, many were homeless or at risk of losing their homes.
“I could never square when I got back the commitment that they made every day, with the reality of their life when they came home,” Doyle says.
Founded in 2012, Rags of Honor is a silk-screen printing company based in Chicago that provides employment and other services to veterans. In the three years since its inception, Rags of Honor has grown from four employees to 22, all but one of whom are veterans at high risk of homelessness.
To read more about Rags of Honor, click here.
The Difference Between Life and Death for LGBT Homeless Teens? Access to a Cell Phone
At least half a million American teens — estimates range between 550,000 and 2.8 million youth — experience homelessness each year, advocates estimate. Lacking resources to find housing on their own, they’re continually at high risk of experiencing a night on the street.
An unexpected factor that unites the group? At least one in five identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, but the demographic could make up as much as 43 percent of the homeless youth population, according to a national survey of 350 agencies. Instead of waiting to move out before they drop the news about their sexual identity, these teens are coming out of the closet earlier. It’s a sign of society’s increasing acceptance, but their youthful independence often comes with consequences. If they face abuse at home or are kicked to the curb, teens are forced to seek shelter at emergency drop-in centers, in abandoned buildings or with friends. Already unsure of their identity, some are wary of receiving assistance from shelters (possibly religious) or social workers (possibly unsympathetic), leaving LGBT homeless teens in danger of physical violence, prostitution, substance abuse and suicide.
Connect 4 Life, a new pilot project launching in Washington, D.C., believes there’s one simple thing these kids need to stay safe from harm: a cell phone.
“Overwhelmingly, youth said that is their lifeline,” says Christopher Wood, executive director of the LGBT Technology Partnership. “It makes a lot of sense. We use our cell phones every day,” Wood adds. “Why would it be any different? Why wouldn’t it be even more crucial for someone that doesn’t have a home to have a phone? That’s why we started this project.”
Wood co-founded the organization, which lobbies on behalf of LGBT groups for greater access to technology, just three years ago, so they’re starting small, distributing 25 phones throughout the capital.
“Making sure they have consistent contact or the ability to connect to the internet greatly improves their outcomes,” Wood says, explaining that the mobile device helps determine whether the teens are able to return to school, find work or establish a stable place to stay. A phone is “their lifeline not just to supportive services, but just the ability to call a friend and say, ‘I need a place to sleep.’”
Connect 4 Life is leaving it to the service providers who interact with homeless teens on a daily basis to determine how the phones are distributed. One program is giving their share of the phones to the kids who seem at the greatest risk, so they have an instant connection to their case manager; another is using it as a kind of reward, offering their mobile devices to those with the greatest motivation to succeed. The phones come with free minutes, texting and data for 10 months. The only catch? LGBT Tech Partnership asks the teens to respond to regular survey questions. If they don’t, the phones aren’t taken away; if they do, they get to keep the devices and free plan for an extra two months.
Wood knows from personal experience how valuable those midnight calls can be. Senior year in high school, he found himself simultaneously outed and thrown out of his home.
Raised in a military family in northern Virginia, Wood was the commander of his high school’s JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). “When I was 17, I was a really good kid. I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t get into trouble,” he recalls. But he guarded the secret of his sexuality and a private love for his boyfriend. One night Wood invited his boyfriend over and fell asleep in his arms on the couch. He woke up early in the morning to find his father bellowing at him. His parents “didn’t understand, they were afraid,” he remembers. “Later that morning, I was being kicked out of my house.” Carrying a hastily packed bag of clothes, Wood didn’t know where to go next. His basic cell phone proved the “crucial” element to finding spare bedrooms and fold-out couches with friends until things smoothed out at home, he says.
“I could text and call people on it. My ability to use a cell phone meant finding a warm place to sleep after that morning. It meant putting myself back together to go to school,” he says. “That changed my entire life trajectory.”
In our increasingly connected world, these phones are proving essential to helping a wary and highly mobile group of at-risk teens safely navigate their way back to safety. It’s a low-cost answer that shelter staff has recognized for years — they’ve often paid for the plans out of their own pocket — and that’s a strategy that’s being adopted nationwide. Google has donated the devices to homeless individuals in the Bay Area, and Ohio’s state government recently asked Wood about bringing the pilot west — ensuring help is only a text message away.
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