Hope: Dee's Story
The ‘Housing first’ model provides the most vulnerable, chronically homeless with housing before adding permanent supportive services to address mental and physical health, substance abuse, employment, education and family reunification so that people can get back on their feet.
One woman's story.
This photo essay originally appeared in the June 2015 issue of Sojourners magazine.
![Every Sunday night, members of Dee’s church fellowship group-- which includes friends from her transgender community--gather for dinner. Healthy social connections are essential to helping the formerly homeless establish stability and sustained hope. Independence, per se, is not a goal of the housing first model. Rather, housing first encourages customers to build their own connections and support system within their communities, which often results in them needing fewer or reduced social services over time.“[Addressing homelessness] is not just one dimensional. You have to address all the issues: getting comprehensive care for mental illness, getting help for substance abuse and having people believe in you,” said Dee.](http://storage.lightgalleries.net/4df269c081183/images/Dee-757_thumb.jpg)
