From Homeless to Landlord
I’ve been reflecting on what it really means to be a stateless and homeless refugee. Most of the time it comes as a package deal, when you are a refugee, you are almost always homeless.
I was lucky enough as a refugee to not be homeless, until 1991, when I was looking for friends that could shelter me and organizations that could help me. It became clear that being homeless is a situation in which you have no voice, and few people will take you seriously because of the status you don’t hold.
It doesn’t mean that you don’t know, or that you don’t have or that you can’t deliver. It just means that you have been labeled.
Throughout my journey I’ve hidden most of my struggles and only shared the circumstances. It doesn’t mean that i don’t struggle today — it means that I do a good job of moving forward from wherever I may be.
Being homeless, I had the opportunity to serve on committees because I had plenty of time, and the opportunity to show up in places, and for people not to know. That provided me the opportunity to start a t-shirt business. I didn’t make millions of dollars, I made (maybe) 200–300 dollars in a month. But that little bit meant in a few months I was able to get in a place of my own, get a bike, and then I had more ways to do more work as well as get more things.
