April 2023 Newsletter

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No Longer Down-And-Out

 

Silas was down-and-out, a man without money, a job, or place to live. He had no network of family or friends to help him get re-established. Without a car, there were limitations to finding work, housing, services. Yet, he was not panicked.

For most of his childhood, he bounced around with his mother to different shelters and transitional housing. Every other weekend, he stayed with his father, but he had no permanent home. When he was a teenager, his father received full custody. Still, it was not a nurturing environment, because his father was into the drug culture. Silas was somewhat protected from it, but as an adult was influenced by it.

He graduated from high school, and as a teenager worked odd jobs. As an adult, he worked as a farm-ranch hand a few years, then moved into town to do landscaping, even started his own business doing the same. So when it came about that he needed to go to the Mission, his life experiences had prepared him. There was no culture shock. He was ready to live in a shelter and look for work.

Within a week, he had jobs attending a motel desk, doing housekeeping, and washing dishes in a restaurant. Since then, he landed a better job at a fabrication company as a sandblaster in their paint shop. Now he drives to work in a car that he bought.

Silas is renting a private room in the Mission’s Transitional Housing Program. Having available, affordable, transitional housing has been very meaningful to him, providing privacy and livability. A couple of times a week, he stops by to have an uplifting chat with our Operations Manager. Once a week (any night of his choosing), he attends a required housing program chapel for encouragement, even a reminder that the Lord loves and has provided for him.