A minor miscommunication had panicked him, and he feared he might be asked to leave. Chasy Hunter assured him all was good. That wording is important — ready to exit homelessness. Not everyone is. Many people who live unsheltered have jobs and know where to find temporary shelter, like in a motel.
But also may not know how to navigate the process of getting an apartment or setting up a bank account. Part of RRHP is, through navigators, teaching vulnerable people how to be ready for a life of regular bills and credit scores and relationships with landlords.
Clients in the program need to be able to demonstrate a steady income or the ability to pay through a year of being housed. I met four of the five — one gentleman chose to not be part of this story — in their shared kitchen on a hot and sunny August afternoon. All four take living here very seriously, because they are all fresh from a lot worse. Scarlett, his wife since February, is nagged by breast cancer treatments that depleted her money.
Boone, who spent two years in and out of hospitals and shelters, is recovering from a stroke. I had a big black bag and two backpacks. The problem he kept running into was that possible employers know what carrying all your possessions in bags represents. For Cunningham, being able to unpack his stuff and leave it in a room of his own is enough to make him take staying in this house seriously.
We're asking you to overlook prior eviction histories. They are willing to work within those parameters. We will meet the Chwaszczewskis in the third part of this series. For the Adamses, their shared room is somewhat of a honeymoon suite, although God still factors in large. Since he first saw her at church, those were easy conditions for him to agree to. They could be eligible to reup for a second year, but that will be determined, as would terms, next spring. But past then, and somewhere in the not-too-distant future, all four residents said they expect to be able to be on their own and all able and willing to pay their fortunes forward to a new crop of RRHP clients.
