(Memphis) A push to house 100,000 homeless people across the country is turning into a learning lesson for social workers.
In October, Memphis received a federal grant to get 100 people here out of the cold. So far, local agencies have been able to house a dozen.
If you hadn’t slept in a bed in 12 years or had a place to call your own, you too would have a grin on your face if you had house keys around your neck
“I am glad I got my keys. Here goes my key!” laughed Patricia Brown.
We first met Brown on the streets in December in a snow and ice storm.
“It ain’t fun. It ain’t nice,” she said.
She was sleeping under soaking wet blankets off Poplar Avenue.
Today, she has an address in North Memphis because of people like Kelcey Johnson.
“The One Hundred Homes Project targets the most vulnerable homeless people we have in the city of Memphis,” he said.
Since October, Johnson with Hospitality Hub has been helping to house 100 homeless people in Memphis with a federal grant.
But through the project, he’s learning that for some “home” is not always where the heart is.
“Sometimes I get kinda lonely,” said Brown.
Johnson says even though the Hundred Homes Project in Memphis has been able to house 12 people so far, half of them still come back to the Hospitality Hub just to be around homeless people.
“The people who’ve been housed, I still see them almost every day at a homeless agency, even though they are no longer homeless because they are lonely,” said Johnson.
And that’s where we actually found Patricia Friday. She wasn’t at her new place, but drinking coffee among friends.
“Yeah, just like being around company,” she said.
But when night falls and the temperatures drops, Patricia says it is nice to know that a three mile walk can take her home, “I am warm. I don`t have to worry about getting rained on.”