{"id":239796,"date":"2018-01-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/new-year-new-challenges-were-ready\/"},"modified":"2018-01-05T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T08:00:00","slug":"new-year-new-challenges-were-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/new-year-new-challenges-were-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"New year, new challenges \u2026 we\u2019re ready"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lana Harrison | Downtown Partnership News<\/p>\n

\u201cI was driving a truck and I didn\u2019t know how to do anything else that would make good money,\u201d said Tori Wilson.<\/p>\n

Wilson, who served in the Air Force in the late 1980s and early \u201990s, was about to have a son. She had recently separated from her husband, and like so many other veterans, was struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other disabilities.<\/p>\n

\"New
A red parking-meter style \u201cdonation station\u201d for the Make Change Count program. (Courtesy DSDP)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The soon-to-be mother needed to find a way to adequately care and provide for her child. For a while, she traveled around the country looking for a place to settle, until finally landing at a friend\u2019s house in San Diego. After that situation didn\u2019t prove safe or sustainable, Wilson called 2-1-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want my son sleeping in a tent on the street,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when she was able to connect with Alpha Project, who quickly moved Wilson and her son into temporary housing through the Housing Our Heroes program. After applying for a HUD Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) voucher to receive a permanent residence, Wilson still needed financial assistance to keep a roof over her head while she waited for the application to go through.<\/p>\n

Through a series of connections, she was able to meet with Ketra, one of the Downtown San Diego Partnership\u2019s Clean & Safe program\u2019s homeless outreach coordinators.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s situation was a perfect match to receive funds from the Make Change Count program, which consists of 25 parking meter-style donation stations located throughout Downtown. Funds from this program can make a housing deposit, meal cards, bus passes or baby formula a reality for another family or individual, and Make Change Count provided Wilson with rental assistance as she waited to transition into permanent housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a waiting game for a voucher and a place to stay, which I knew wouldn\u2019t happen quickly,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIf they hadn\u2019t helped me, I would be on the streets with my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

The beginning of Wilson\u2019s story is, tragically, not uncommon and this past year has undeniably been a tough one for those in our community who also call the streets home.Still, like Wilson\u2019s experience with Alpha Project and Make Change Count, there are positive stories in 2017 that give us hope for the year ahead.Take Clean & Safe\u2019s Family Reunification Program, for example.<\/p>\n

This year, in partnership with the San Diego Housing Commission, 400 homeless individuals were reunited with family and friends throughout the country via the program. Connecting individuals and families with support systems can make all the difference in the lives of people transitioning off the street.The city\u2019s bridge shelters, opened in collaboration with Father Joe\u2019s Villages, Alpha Project and Veteran\u2019s Village of San Diego, are also operational and ready to transition homeless individuals and families into permanent housing and services to help build new lives. The County of San Diego also expects to be able to lift the emergency status of hepatitis A by the end of this month.Though the challenges of 2017 are not quite behind us and 2018 will certainly present new ones, these small victories can serve as a catalyst for continued efforts and opportunities in the new year.<\/p>\n

We are excited to build off the success of the Family Reunification Program to help another 400 people connect with the support systems they need for sustained safety and health in 2018.<\/p>\n

Wilson has lived in her permanent home for about a year now. Her son attends school and is receiving the care he needs to adjust to a new way of life, while Wilson has found that baking is her own form of therapy. She makes calls to friends and stays connected with people from the Air Force who live in the area \u2014 one of whom has been a great role model to her son. And Alpha Project still calls to check in once in a while.While Wilson doesn\u2019t hold too many expectations for 2018, she still has things she tentatively looks forward to. They\u2019re things like establishing a schedule, finding new friends, getting on top of doctor\u2019s appointments, and finding work \u2014 regular, everyday-life things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so nice to have a home phone number, to have a house phone,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cIt\u2019s the simple things in life people don\u2019t realize are so special.\u201dTo learn more about Downtown San Diego Partnership\u2019s Clean & Safe program, visit downtownsandiego.org\/clean-and-safe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Lana Harrison is the communications coordinator for the Downtown San Diego Partnership. She can be reached at lharrison@downtownsandiego.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lana Harrison | Downtown Partnership News \u201cI was driving a truck and I didn\u2019t know how to do anything else that would make good money,\u201d said Tori Wilson. Wilson, who served in the Air Force in the late 1980s and early \u201990s, was about to have a son. She had recently separated from her […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1243,"featured_media":237334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"New year, new challenges \u2026 we\u2019re ready","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}