Sister Pat
So the time is almost here to heal my broken wings and fly out of here.
It is not necessary for anyone to carry his cross alone.
If he is near the Shipyard Gate, he will see the House of Lord Green.
Men with a broken heart, a broken soul, a cup or a broken mouth;
Let men remain free-willed and free-souled when they have no needs.
Many guys, like me, live here in cars or trucks, wherever they can find place To the park for the night. In the park, by Puget Sound, in the parking lots. And we consider ourselves lucky that we had a car or a sleeping car. But no showers, no place to wash. clothes We had no money to take showers or wash our clothes. We can’t even smell it.
We all came from different paths when we got here, but we were all happy when we got here.
Now I use “we” because we all come from a different place and have our own story. When I listen to the news on the radio in my truck, “we” is still there. Millions of people, like me, lost their homes in the nau/a> collapse. Vast myriads of people, like me, had their homes almost foreclosed upon. Thousands of people, like me, have lost their jobs because of the economy. In my case, the Navy canceled the contract because of the economy and the politics of the Federal Government.
“We” became Fred, just like little ol’ Fred. I felt little, old and alone. I was soon depressed. Because I didn’t have any money to pay for the meds, I “lost it” and an old friend of mine checked me out. There were times that I was blacked out and disturbed in my truck bed in the middle of the night. It is the coldest night in winter.
I spent a lot of time at Work Source and sleeping in my truck in the Work Source or Work Ready parking lot. I was among the first people in those places to work or look for work. The big boss, another Terry, at Work Source had me high on his “desperate list to fix”. Besides, I was sleeping in his garage a lot at work and my truck (I call it the Red Turtle Truck because it has a cable.) was leaking oil all over the parking lot. Sister Pat’s crew made sure to welcome me to the Blessed Home. I didn’t want to come here, but I’m grateful anyway.
The Blessed House gave me not only a place to stay, enough food to eat, a place to eat, but also to strengthen my way of finding a way to get on with life. Head Staffer Alex and Staffers Terry, Dewey, Ron and now Tina have been around to offer advice and encouragement. The computer room provided me with a place for constant internet work, my repetitive and endlessly necessary work. cover letters for work. Terry, Tina and you, Sister Pat, I could scan the papers on my computer or fax the paper work to all my places around the world, including for the electrician and Marine electrician positions in Antarctica, because I was invited to do so. of Raytheon. There were times when the Blessed House telephone conversations were important to me because this was the only telephone available to me. I’ve had five phone interviews here for jobs in San Diego twice, for Washington D.C. for Huntsville, Alabama, and another for East Seattle, which was the first second step to be successful. conference in Bellevue.
There is already a growing population of homeless people. I know that once I leave here on June 1st, I leave the first full bed in my place in bed #7. I know there would have been at least three people needing my bed. I was at the Blessed Home for 5 months, from January 2 or January until the first day of June, when I was about to leave here. I am Writing Almost in Tears Job who is just hanging on ready to fall. These are tears of joy and grace. It took me 2 years to find a job. The reasons why my resume was bad in the first year but I discovered it in myself. Here at Blessed Home, Terry Longstreet has been helping others with resumes and employment issues.
There are many ways that people here can help and be encouraged. I wish there were more programs here to help people. I know there are other needs out there that might have helped me get a job faster but there are no programs to go to the training or funding that guys like me need. I am happy, however. With a lot of help and tools here, finding a safe place, I found a new way to start life again.
I cannot pay for the intrinsic values that are part of my life. Although I hope to give back a little to not only pay for my stay here and I hope to find a way to help a few others, I can never fully repay all that the House of Benedict has done for me. I will always be grateful and I hope my actions while here have been shown to be true.
Thanks again Sister Pat!
The version of this blog will be my homeless blog that will be changed to a different type of blog later because Blessed Home has helped me become someone who isn’t homeless anywhere near Seattle anymore.
