Downpayment for Homeless Veterans Home
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This GoFundMe campaign is to help raise the downpayment for a Veterans Group Home located at 1707 McLeod Avenue on James Island, Charleston, South Carolina which has operated as a group home for Veterans since 1986, 34 years. Presently, the home can hold 16 veterans. Per Veterans Administration specifications a sprinkler system must be installed. The home needs simple renovations and landscaping to make this home the best home on the block.
The downpayment to secure the mortgage and renovation financing is $86,000 plus working capital of $14,000 for the first six months of operations. So this campaign goal is $100,000. The owner and operator of this Group Home will be Senior Housing and Resource Management, led by Leslie Jackson, an expert in senior housing. Every day Leslie receives calls for seniors in need of housing. 60% of the seniors can’t afford the going rate of $2,500 per month for market rate senior independent living. That is how Senior Housing and Resource Management, a 501(c)3 was born: helping seniors and the homeless without the income for market rate housing. The first homeless senior she helped was Randall S. from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Randall had been homeless for two months and was suffering from multiple cancers. Leslie successfully found housing for Randall in a group home where he lived out his days with hospice care until he passed. Leslie’s first residential care facility will be assisting Veterans with transitional housing.
You can all make a difference by donating a dollar, just $1. Then ask your social network of friends and family if they will donate $1. Of course this campaign will graciously accept more than $1. By using your social networks we can raise the $100,000 for the bank to finance the mortgage, then make the necessary renovations to the Veterans Administrations specifications and approval, and then move in 15 homeless Veterans. One Veteran has resided at this address for 13 years in an 8x10 room which he is very proud of and keeps extremely well organized and clean.
If you slept in a bed last night and were blessed to shower and enjoy breakfast this morning, this is the gift we want to give to the homeless regardless of their journey. This first project is to house 15 homeless male veterans in transitional housing. They will receive the benefit of “Home Arts” training to assist them in moving on to permanent housing.
Opening day is September 1, 2020.
You are all invited to visit and tour this Homeless Transitional Veterans Home on opening day.
The Day Holy City Treks Was Born...
October 27, 2015 my students entered my classroom very sadly. What happened I asked? Chris Bates, a fellow student was killed by a car while riding his bike on Meeting Street,
October 22, 2020. Then another student spoke, “My best friend’s sister, Lindsey T. Ranz was killed crossing Septima Clark Parkway January 14, 2014.” I suggested to my clearly grieving students, that we work to make Charleston, SC safer for pedestrians. Ironically, I was hit by a van March 8, 2018 as I crossed the street to board a bus with all its lights flashing. God has put me to work on this evolving mission.
The students named the organization Holy City Treks with the original mission to make alternative modes of transportation safer on the Peninsula for pedestrians, bike riders, skateboarders, CARTA bus riders etc. As we walked the streets taking pictures of vehicles too close to pedestrians, timing crosswalk lights, measuring sidewalks, photographing skateboarders weaving between delivery trucks, tourist buses, and cars we continued to discover the homeless: sleeping in a doorway, collecting money on King Street, trying to board the bus on Calhoun and St. Philip.
Holy City Treks was incorporated as a nonprofit South Carolina charity August 22, 2016. We met as a team until my students graduated and moved on with their lives. But the number of homeless continued to increase. A twenty year old from Annapolis, a sales director from Chicago, a sixty four year old construction laborer from Ann Arbor, a one legged construction worker from Charleston, a woman Veteran from Rochester on the streets since 2012, a couple married 25 years evicted from their boat by the city now for the first time ever living on the street. A couple from Mount Pleasant who paid 28 years on a 30 year mortgage and lost their home to the bank in 2009 and even college students couchsurfing or living in their cars.
With North Charleston ranked number one in the United States in evictions by EvictionLab.org meeting the working poor, very poor and extremely poor occurs daily in the Lowcountry if you learn the signs of homelessness and hunger. And now COVID-19 has quickened the pace of homelessness especially for women and children. Driving Rivers Road between Cosgrove and Remount Roads homeless men, women and children walk aimlessly without hope. This is a Charleston tragedy, an American tragedy, and a global tragedy.
Pre COVID-19 Holy City Treks research estimated approximately 7,500 people were homeless in Charleston and the Lowcountry. Post COVID-19, Holy City Treks is forecasting a minimum 40% increase to 10,500. Since mid March the calls I am receiving are for homeless women, some pregnant, and many with children. Homelessness and food insecurity causes a life of medical and psychological trauma. This is wrong.
So a new strategic plan was written in 2019 with the mission that
“No One Should Ever Be Homeless. Ever.” Spoken by Randall, age 64, from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Holy City Treks is a 501(c)3 homeless housing consultancy working to Energize People and Energize Assets to create more housing for the homeless. Thank you for helping us raise the necessary down payment and working capital for this first housing project operated by Senior Housing and Resource Management.
10,500 homeless less 15 Veteran beds equals 10,485 homes to go with your help! Thank you for your gift!
The downpayment to secure the mortgage and renovation financing is $86,000 plus working capital of $14,000 for the first six months of operations. So this campaign goal is $100,000. The owner and operator of this Group Home will be Senior Housing and Resource Management, led by Leslie Jackson, an expert in senior housing. Every day Leslie receives calls for seniors in need of housing. 60% of the seniors can’t afford the going rate of $2,500 per month for market rate senior independent living. That is how Senior Housing and Resource Management, a 501(c)3 was born: helping seniors and the homeless without the income for market rate housing. The first homeless senior she helped was Randall S. from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Randall had been homeless for two months and was suffering from multiple cancers. Leslie successfully found housing for Randall in a group home where he lived out his days with hospice care until he passed. Leslie’s first residential care facility will be assisting Veterans with transitional housing.
You can all make a difference by donating a dollar, just $1. Then ask your social network of friends and family if they will donate $1. Of course this campaign will graciously accept more than $1. By using your social networks we can raise the $100,000 for the bank to finance the mortgage, then make the necessary renovations to the Veterans Administrations specifications and approval, and then move in 15 homeless Veterans. One Veteran has resided at this address for 13 years in an 8x10 room which he is very proud of and keeps extremely well organized and clean.
If you slept in a bed last night and were blessed to shower and enjoy breakfast this morning, this is the gift we want to give to the homeless regardless of their journey. This first project is to house 15 homeless male veterans in transitional housing. They will receive the benefit of “Home Arts” training to assist them in moving on to permanent housing.
Opening day is September 1, 2020.
You are all invited to visit and tour this Homeless Transitional Veterans Home on opening day.
The Day Holy City Treks Was Born...
October 27, 2015 my students entered my classroom very sadly. What happened I asked? Chris Bates, a fellow student was killed by a car while riding his bike on Meeting Street,
October 22, 2020. Then another student spoke, “My best friend’s sister, Lindsey T. Ranz was killed crossing Septima Clark Parkway January 14, 2014.” I suggested to my clearly grieving students, that we work to make Charleston, SC safer for pedestrians. Ironically, I was hit by a van March 8, 2018 as I crossed the street to board a bus with all its lights flashing. God has put me to work on this evolving mission.
The students named the organization Holy City Treks with the original mission to make alternative modes of transportation safer on the Peninsula for pedestrians, bike riders, skateboarders, CARTA bus riders etc. As we walked the streets taking pictures of vehicles too close to pedestrians, timing crosswalk lights, measuring sidewalks, photographing skateboarders weaving between delivery trucks, tourist buses, and cars we continued to discover the homeless: sleeping in a doorway, collecting money on King Street, trying to board the bus on Calhoun and St. Philip.
Holy City Treks was incorporated as a nonprofit South Carolina charity August 22, 2016. We met as a team until my students graduated and moved on with their lives. But the number of homeless continued to increase. A twenty year old from Annapolis, a sales director from Chicago, a sixty four year old construction laborer from Ann Arbor, a one legged construction worker from Charleston, a woman Veteran from Rochester on the streets since 2012, a couple married 25 years evicted from their boat by the city now for the first time ever living on the street. A couple from Mount Pleasant who paid 28 years on a 30 year mortgage and lost their home to the bank in 2009 and even college students couchsurfing or living in their cars.
With North Charleston ranked number one in the United States in evictions by EvictionLab.org meeting the working poor, very poor and extremely poor occurs daily in the Lowcountry if you learn the signs of homelessness and hunger. And now COVID-19 has quickened the pace of homelessness especially for women and children. Driving Rivers Road between Cosgrove and Remount Roads homeless men, women and children walk aimlessly without hope. This is a Charleston tragedy, an American tragedy, and a global tragedy.
Pre COVID-19 Holy City Treks research estimated approximately 7,500 people were homeless in Charleston and the Lowcountry. Post COVID-19, Holy City Treks is forecasting a minimum 40% increase to 10,500. Since mid March the calls I am receiving are for homeless women, some pregnant, and many with children. Homelessness and food insecurity causes a life of medical and psychological trauma. This is wrong.
So a new strategic plan was written in 2019 with the mission that
“No One Should Ever Be Homeless. Ever.” Spoken by Randall, age 64, from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Holy City Treks is a 501(c)3 homeless housing consultancy working to Energize People and Energize Assets to create more housing for the homeless. Thank you for helping us raise the necessary down payment and working capital for this first housing project operated by Senior Housing and Resource Management.
10,500 homeless less 15 Veteran beds equals 10,485 homes to go with your help! Thank you for your gift!
Organizer
Denise Marie Fugo
Organizer
Charleston, SC