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My name is Anĵelica
August 15 2007
My name is Anĵelica. I am 22 years old and I have been homeless for nine years. I began as a runaway youth who heard about YouthCare’s Orion Center through other homeless individuals. I immediately checked it out because who doesn’t want a free shower and food?
I think what made me feel the safest there is at the time I attended the Orion Interagency School drop-in center, the police weren’t allowed to come in without a warrant. Many of the youth who go to drop-in centers are runaways. A lot of them come from abusive homes or any abuse that ranges from verbal to sexual abuse, and YouthCare provides a safe environment for these youth to seek counseling services and other means of living without having to feel pressured to face these situations.
It gives you enough time to assess your goals at such a young age, and it gives you enough time to accomplish these goals. I continued ages 13-14 at The Shelter in the University District where I began to learn how to identify myself as a “normal” child. I later learned that I by no means was normal and that would be okay, and everything would work out.
What I quickly learned was how to manipulate the YouthCare staff for needs of attention and to improvise for the parental guidance that I could never receive from a program. So I turned to men. At the age of 15, I was arrested and taken to Echo Glen for a year due to all the criminal activity I picked up on the streets.
All the criminal offenses I had obtained were a way of finding out who I really was. When I was released from Echo Glen a year later, I went back to what I knew which was sleeping around for a place to stay, looking for that male role in my life that I so desperately needed.
At the age of 16 I got pregnant and went back to YouthCare’s Ravenna House for pregnant teens. I went back to high school and took parenting classes to take care of my child. Later, I found out that YouthCare was ultimately the reason why my child was taken by CPS. I now thank YouthCare for influencing the necessities for a new life. At the age of 18, I became addicted to methamphetamines. I had been living under a bridge for about a year, and by the age of 19, I had become a stripper.
At 19, through stripping, I quickly learned I could pay off a down payment on a house by prostituting. That house was later raided for processing and distributing meth. I decided I had enough. I woke up in jail one day and decided I would never use drugs again. Mind you, I have over two years clean. By the age of 20, I was in Mental Health Court working out my drug-induced psychosis, learning that meth changes the whole chemical make-up of your brain; I had developed two new psychological disorders, Bipolar Disorder Type II and Borderline Personality Disorder.
And then at the age of 21, I decided the only way I would become socially acceptable again would be to become socially responsible and get a job. I turned back to what I knew, and the only people I knew that were willing to give me a chance was YouthCare.
This program was the only parental figure that I could turn to. After eight weeks of intensive training, I not only had assessed my goals and evaluated my employment skills, I had also evaluated my educational and housing needs. I completed a resume and cover letter which landed me the job that I presently work at today.
I can proudly say I average $15.00 an hour working at a prestigious clothing company that you all know and love. While in the program, I learned how to take constructive criticism. I also learned how to co-exist with other employees and how to communicate professionally and effectively. I can honestly say that I did not possess any of these skills, not even the slightest bit, before the Barista Program.
The reason why I decided to come all the way to Olympia on my day off, when I could have slept in, to advocate for YouthCare’s employment programs, is because when you get a little older you realize what’s important in your life. And you feel a desire to give back to the ones that you love the most, and I can say out of dozens of, maybe even hundreds of clients at YouthCare, I was at one point a lost cause. And because of these programs, I was able to redirect that fate and make something of myself.
Please consider that I’m not the only one that feels this way. And we desperately need more programs like this.
