Hi, my name is Daidren. I'm homeless and have been on my own since I was 16 years old. My mother chose to chase a married man, and my father wasn't there. I didn't know my mom's side or my dad's side of the family, so that sucked. When I was young, my grandma told me that I was the black sheep of the family. At an early age, I did not know what that meant, but as I got older, I truly found out.

I have not always been homeless. It happened after I broke my knees. I broke the left one into five pieces and the right one into six. This happened after I came back from New Orleans working offshore. What led to my homelessness was a female I was talking to. She made it seem like she was pregnant with my kid because I was talking to her before I left. It was the best feeling in the world, me not knowing it was all fake. I sold my car to help her out with the bills, and all my money went towards them because I thought I had a family. But people kept telling me that the kid was not mine, so I ended up getting a DNA test done, and it wasn't mine. She was furious about it. I came home, well, it was supposed to be home, one day from work, and all my stuff was sitting outside. Ever since then, I've been struggling with homelessness, trying to find a stable place to stay.

It's been hard. Twice now through this journey of homelessness, I got played. People took money from me because I thought I had found a room for rent out of a house, but come to find out, the people had been evicted and were just hanging around the house. I felt so stupid, but I learned from it. I come asking for help because the city I'm in does not have great resources to help a single homeless man. I am trying to get my own place, but it's so hard trying to work and be homeless at the same time. This will help me out tremendously to get on my feet and stay there.