- 22-year-old Leroy came to the Iberia Homeless Shelter with nothing, and had to sleep on the ground as he waited for them to open.
- Now, with a full-time job and plans to move into his own house, he's reflecting on how the shelter has helped change his life.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The Iberia Homeless Shelter is meant to give 'temporary care' to those in need, while helping them get back on their feet. With mandatory chores, job searches, and a strict curfew, board member Greg Mullen wants donors to know that the shelter is creating “productive members of society.”
“You gotta work, you got a job to do, you gotta be active. This is not a long term, it’s a short term but it gets people on—it helps them get on the right track so they can get where they need to be so they can have their own place again.”
One person that can vouch for this is 22-year-old Leroy. This is from an interview we did 5 months ago: “I came way late at night so, I slept on the ground."
And now…
“I’ve been great! Everything’s going really well, I hav—I got a job now.” After lots of struggle and hard work, Leroy will soon be moving into a house of his own. “He put in 42 applications," said Executive Director Stephen Etienne, "and we finally got him full-time employment.”
From homeless to home-renter….Leroy says that the shelter has really helped him turn his life around. "It helped me to stay organized, take responsibility for my actions, take accountability, cause I’m gonna have to do this on my own. Everything that I’m learning at the shelter, I’m gonna have to do.”
