Resident Stories

"This Place is Holy Ground"

October 28, 2021

City Mission’s Samaritan Care outreach program provides help to people in need in the community. For many, homelessness is just one medical bill or missed paycheck away, so City Mission provides supportive services to local families and individuals who qualify as low-income. Every Tuesday and Thursday from 10am-3pm, the Samaritan Care Center food pantry opens its doors to the public. There, you can get nonperishable food items, winter clothes, hygiene items, and even toys for your kids. Most days when the Center is open, there are representatives from local organizations like BluePrints, SNAP, Gateway Health, and Dress for Success on hand to offer information, guidance, and support. Tom came to our Samaritan Care Center in August seeking emergency shelter. His wife of 40 years had passed away in 2017. “I still think about her every day,” he said. Going from two incomes to one proved to be difficult, and he was forced to move out of the beautiful home he had shared with his wife. After that, he lived in an apartment building for a while, until it burned to the ground. He lost all of his possessions in the fire. He stayed with friends after that for about a month, but soon, at age 80, he found himself sleeping in cars, on couches, and even outside in the grass. That’s when he came to City Mission for help. He knew about the Mission, because he had been a monthly donor for years. “This was my last resort,” he explained. “As old as I am, I can’t survive living on the streets out in the heat. I just never thought I’d ever be in a position like this.” Tom grew up in Washington. During his life, he was a coal miner, a construction worker, and a maintenance man for a pharmaceutical company. He even owned his own business for eight years before retiring in 2001. He never thought he would end up homeless. When he did, he came to the Mission for help, but he didn’t really want to enter the residential program at first. He just needed some food and a place to stay for a bit while he figured some things out. When Tom came to City Mission, we were still under COVID restrictions, so instead of setting up a cot for him in our facility as we normally would for emergency shelter, Jason Johnson, our Director of Operations who oversees the Samaritan Care Center, helped Tom secure a hotel room nearby and took him three meals a day. In the mornings, Johnson would pick him up and bring him to the Mission, where Anne Wightman, City Mission’s Samaritan Care Coordinator, would help him make phone calls and contact local organizations to assist him with applications for housing. After a few days of that, Tom was so impressed with what the Mission did for him that he decided to enter the program. “They saved my life,” Tom said. “The staff here are angels sent from above. This is actually the happiest I’ve been in a long time. I’m not afraid. This place is a sanctuary. It’s Holy Ground!” Tom is just one example of the great work our Samaritan Care team is doing in the community. Johnson and Wightman have an infinite list of stories who have come to the Samaritan Center for help. From prisoners freshly released from jail to a widow living in her car in a parking lot to an elderly couple living in a trailer outside a junkyard, Samaritan Care stands up for those who just need a little support and guidance as they work their way toward a better life. “Everybody is here because the Lord brought us here,” said Wightman, explaining why she is so passionate about the good work being done at City Mission’s Samaritan Care Center. “We all have a calling to be here.” Learn more about Samaritan Care and support our community outreach ministry at citymission.org.

A Complete Transformation

October 9, 2021

Raised in a dysfunctional family and eventually placed in foster care, Autumn struggled with anxiety that made it difficult for her to build healthy relationships and develop important life skills. When she had three children of her own and she and her husband separated, she needed some help to care for her little ones by herself. Living in an area plagued with poverty and crime, her anxiety escalated, and she began using alcohol to ease her despair. Soon, it became clear that her destructive habit only made her family’s situation worse. “I was really in a dark place. It was like a dark cloud was over me and my kids. I needed a drastic change,” she said. “But I knew moving to a different neighborhood wouldn’t be enough.” When her aunt suggested she seek help at City Mission, “I put the kids in the car and drove straight to Washington.” When she got to the Mission, she sat down for an intake interview with House Coordinator, Nettie Ledbetter, and she immediately knew she had made the right decision. “When I got here, it was awesome,” she explained. “Even just when I sat in the office with Ms. Nettie, I was like, I know I’m gonna be ok.” After just a month in our program, Autumn’s life has changed dramatically. Bible study, chapel services, and spiritual guidance are bringing her closer to God and helping her heal emotionally. Through life-skills classes like budgeting, along with duties in our donation center, she’s becoming more responsible and learning new ways to cope. “They’re not doing it for me,” she said, “they’re giving me the tools and resources I need to walk on my own.” Most importantly, she’s becoming the loving mother and role model for her children she never had as a child. “I’ve seen a huge transformation in my kids since being here, and it’s really rewarding,” she explained. While Autumn isn’t yet sure what the future holds, she looks forward to holding a steady job, living independently, and providing a safe and stable life for her children. She has also vowed to continue her walk with the Lord. “I really feel like God guided me here,” she said. “And I’m thankful, because looking back, He has never given up on me, and I can be pretty stubborn and hardheaded and wanting to do things on my own. But I have a lot more faith now – faith that if you do the work and do the right thing, a lot of good things come to you and a lot more people are drawn to you. You get that positive space of wanting to grow and wanting to change.” This year, it will be a Christmas filled with joy for Autumn and her children, and she’s grateful to you for this wonderful gift of a new beginning. “City Mission saved my life,” she said. “It made me a better person and a better mother. By the time I leave here, it will be a complete transformation.”

Grateful Through it All

September 23, 2021

As Travis looked around at the streets that had been his home for more than a decade, he knew the time had come to make some major changes. He was tired of addiction controlling his life and destroying everything he loved. “It was just fun in the beginning, when I first started using drugs, but then one thing led to another. For about 12 years, I was never clean longer than three days.” Travis was able to hold down a job, but his personal life suffered. All his relationships failed, and it strained his connection with his family.“I was on the streets for pretty much 11 years – doing all kinds of bad stuff that I shouldn’t be doing. Every penny went to drugs.” While he was in rehab, Travis learned about City Mission when he met one of our staff members who speaks there every Sunday night. That relationship led Travis to seek help staying clean and rebuilding his life. “I came here to try and do the right thing,” he says. “I needed God in my life, and that drew me here.”At City Mission, Travis experienced a real relationship with God for the first time in his life. The daily routine of classes, counseling and Bible study are helping him stay sober and rebuild his life in a healthy way. “I had stopped looking for God for a long time. But now we do devotions every morning and I pray every single night… just a little friendly reminder to stay on the right path.” His parents have been supportive of his recovery journey, and they are proud of the changes they see in him. He’s working hard so that, when the time is right, he can go back out into the world and find a job and place of his own. Travis feels incredibly thankful for your compassion and support – and how it’s given him a fresh start in life. “Everyone here is so supportive and amazing. I see a future now, when before it was just darkness.”

True Colors

June 14, 2021

At ten minutes before 4pm on Monday, June 7, the rain started coming down. Brianna Kadlecik, City Mission’s Career Services Manager, had just started setting up for the second annual outdoor Tie-Dye event for the residents. Quickly, with help from the Mission’s Recovery Support staff, she moved all the tables and supplies under the pavilion by the men’s shelter to get out of the rain. “We want to create opportunities for our residents to have fun and relax when they’re here, and to take a break from the heavier and more difficult issues that they’re working through,” Kadlecik said, explaining why she was so determined to put on the event for the residents, even in the rain. “Events like this also help build community with the residents and they get to see each other and the staff in a different light.” Last summer, during COVID lockdown, it was a difficult and unsettling time for the Mission and their residents. During that time, the Mission staff worked hard to host fun activities to help boost the morale of the residents – activities like movie nights and coloring groups. One Mission resident had the idea for a tie-dye-t-shirt-making event. “Not only did that resident want to do tie-dye for the sheer fun of the event, but he also wanted to have something that reminded him of his time at the Mission,” Kadlecik explained. “I thought it was a brilliant idea and we both took time to watch videos and read articles about how to do tie-dye.” The event was so successful last year, with nearly 30 residents participating, that Kadlecik knew she needed to do it again this year. Thirty-two residents and seven staff members made a shirt last Monday, and five more residents plan to make shirts in the coming weeks. “I firmly believe in the power that self-expression and creativity have in our personal healing and self-care,” Kadlecik noted. “We get so many residents from various walks of life and some of them haven’t been exposed to the freedom of creating to express themselves or to purely have fun. “It’s a joy to see the residents smiling as they dye their shirts -- to hear them laughing, helping, and encouraging one another as they create their shirts.” You can help the men, women, children, and veterans who stay with us to have positive experiences, gain confidence, build connections, and live with hope along their journey to independent living. Visit us at www.citymission.org to learn more about our programs and services and to see how you can support our life-changing work in the community.

All Bases Covered

Tom Crooks in Front of Crabtree Kovacicek Veterans House

May 24, 2021

Tom is a Desert Storm-era veteran, serving in the US Army from 1990-1994. He grew up in Belmont County, OH.After his military service, for years, he was a salesman at Xerox. But, eventually, his health deteriorated to the point where he could no longer work or even live on his own. Suffering from severe hearing loss and the intense pain of two failing hip joints along with the loss of his job and his independence, he spiraled into depression. He finally sought help at the Veterans Center in Belmont County for his medical and mental health issues.To his surprise, the Veterans Center recommended him to a place he had never heard of in a completely different state – City Mission’s Crabtree-Kovacicek Veterans House. “It was actually my home state of Ohio that said, you know, basically, the best place for you to go to be able to get the help you need would be the City Mission in Washington, PA,” Tom explained. “And I thought that sounded pretty surprising.”Tom was encouraged when he heard that City Mission was a Christ-centered shelter. Even though he was raised in the Catholic church, he had fallen away from God at different periods in his life, and he knew that getting right again with the Lord was exactly what he needed to get his life back on track. “It’s well-rounded here,” he said. “You have a faith-based community. You have help for veterans. You have help for everyone. And it’s all those different programs wrapped together that you know, I figured I would give it a try.”So he got a ride down Interstate-70 and moved into the Veterans House at City Mission in October of 2019. Immediately, Steve Adams, City Mission’s Manager of Veterans Services, connected Tom with the VA, where he has been able to get help with his hearing loss. He is also currently on the waiting list for two hip replacements.Additionally, he is working with our staff at the Career Training and Education Center to restore a sense of purpose in his life by establishing education and career goals. Inspired by the compassionate work of the City Mission staff, he is even considering pursuing his Master of Arts in Theology and Christian Ministry through the online program at Fransiscan University.“You’ve got a support team here that handles everything in regards to education, job search, housing placement, so on and so forth. The whole core concept is basically preparing you to get back to independent living. So, all bases are covered,” he said of his experience at the Mission.“Before I came here,” he added, “I didn’t feel like I had any kind of a future. But now, you know, there’s light on the road ahead.” In November of 2020, after more than a year at the Mission, Tom moved out of the Veterans House and back to Belmont County, Ohio to be near his friends and family and his fiancée. Steve Adams spoke with Tom just a few months ago. “He is doing well,” Adams said. “He’s in good spirits.”Like so many local veterans who have struggled, Tom got the help he needed and rediscovered his passion for life at City Mission’s Crabtree-Kovacicek Veterans House. Your compassion helped Tom find his way. There are 22 more veterans in our Veterans House who could certainly use your help. Visit https://www.citymission.org/support/veterans to find out how you can help or call 724-222-8530 to learn more.

"I'm a Real Person Again!"

Brianna Kadlecik, Manager of Career Services

May 7, 2021

Imagine for a moment that you live in a tent under a bridge. You’ve only been homeless for a few weeks, and things are actually starting to look up. You just had a job interview earlier in the day that seems promising enough. You have relevant experience, and you feel like it’ll be a good fit. It is giving you the first glimmer of hope you have had in quite a while. If things go well, maybe you can even get an apartment within the next few weeks. Maybe your kids could even come and live with you again sometime in the near future. That’s what you’ve been praying for. On your way back to your tent for the night, you hear a rustling in the bushes behind you. Before you can turn around, you’ve been clubbed over the head with a rock. You’re lying in the dirt, slipping in and out of consciousness, but you feel hands digging in your pockets for your wallet. When you come to, you realize that everything has been stolen from you – your cash and credit cards, all of your ID documents, even the photos of your kids that you keep in your backpack. Thankfully, you get that job you were hoping for, but the company can’t hire you, because you’re unable to provide ID for their new hire paperwork. Early the next morning, you go to the post office to get your last unemployment check so you can buy food. You haven’t eaten in three days. But no place in town will cash the check for you, because you have no ID. You contact the Vital Records department to get a copy of your birth certificate, but you have to provide an ID. So you call PennDot to get a copy of your state ID, but they ask for your birth certificate. You can’t figure out how your life unraveled so quickly. At the end of your rope, with nowhere else to turn, you walk in the doors at City Mission. Immediately, you get a hot meal, a soft bed, a change of clothes, and you meet Career Services Manager, Brianna Kadlecik. “I can help you,” she says. She sits you down in the Career Training and Education Center and hands you an application. She tells you that the Mission has helped to provide roughly 850 identity documents for their residents since she started working there four years ago and already 133 pieces of identification since this past October.“90% of our residents come to us missing at least one of the key ID documents: Birth Certificate, SocialSecurity Card, or State ID,” she explains. “And the doors it can open up for you when you get them are amazing! Employment, housing, and things like that.”You tell her you were born and raised in Pennsylvania. “That’ll make it easy,” she says. And she explains that the best place to start is to contact the Vital Records department to get your birth certificate. As a social worker, she can make the request on your behalf. You just have to sign a letter giving her permission. That can really speed up the process and help you navigate the loop of having to provide ID to get your birth certificate. “Huge props to PA,” she adds. “They have a homeless fee waiver for birth certificates, which is tremendous. Not many states offer that.” Brianna explains that your application should go pretty quick, but sometimes out-of-state requests can get a bit tricky. She tells you a story about a former resident who came to the Mission in January of 2018. She was born in Texas. The only ID she had was an expired driver’s license from Michigan. Her parents were no longer alive, and she really had no family to vouch for her identity or make the request on her behalf. Brianna explained that they were between a rock and a hard place with the Texas Vital Records department and every application they submitted was rejected for six months.“Ultimately, she needed a state ID to get a job, but first, we had to get her birth certificate, because that unlocks all the other doors,” Brianna says. “I give her a ton of credit. She was so patient.” Waiting on the ID documents set her job search back several months, but Brianna and the resident never gave up. At the end of July that year, the birth certificate finally came in the mail. “When it finally came in,” Brianna remembers, “we were both over the moon. We had worked so hard. And she definitely needed it.” When your birth certificate comes in the mail three weeks later, Brianna hands it to you across the table in the Career Training and Education Center. “We’re here to help you remove barriers,” she smiles. “And this birth certificate is going to take barriers away and help you secure employment and housing and get you on your way to independence. It may seem like just a small, little thing right now, but it’s actually a HUGE thing.”You hold the crisp, new birth certificate in your hands. It has your name printed on it in bold letters.“I’m a real person,” you say, without thinking. “This proves that I’m a real person again.” Now, you have the documentation you need to get a job, apply for public housing, rent an apartment, cash a check, apply for student loans, etc. Just a few pieces of paper unlock all of these doors for you. City Mission has helped hundreds of people walk through these doors. With your help, together, we can help hundreds more. Visit www.citymission.org to learn more about how you can help. ‍

Robert Breaks Free

April 23, 2021

Robert sat in a prison cell trying to figure out how to get his life turned around. His addiction had ruined his life, destroyed his relationships with his wife and kids, and ultimately landed him in prison. He knew he needed to change everything if things were going to get any better. Robert, who grew up in the Mon Valley, was baptized in the Catholic church. He was also an altar boy and attended Catholic school. But it wasn’t a happy childhood. Sadly, Robert was molested at a young age by a family member. At age 14, perhaps as a way to cope with his trauma, he began experimenting with drugs and alcohol. “The first time I ever used any type of drugs, I was 14,” he explained. “But it didn’t progress any. And then, when I got into my 20s, when I was able to go to bars, that’s when it progressed. Drinking, you know, basically every day after work.” His drinking was an attempt to numb the pain from his childhood, but it prevented him from seeking help to treat bipolar, anxiety, and Post-traumatic Stress disorders, which all went undiagnosed for decades. In 2010, he managed to break his back, and his doctor prescribed painkillers. “I was drinking every day, but the drug problem didn’t come into effect until I broke my back,” Robert said. “The doctor kept prescribing me opioids. And then, all of a sudden, he cut me off.” After his prescriptions ran out, Robert began to self-medicate with street drugs, which eventually led to a full-blown addiction that lasted for nearly ten years. During that time, he was homeless and living on the street for about eight months. “I slept under bridges. I slept in a doghouse once,” he recalled. “I slept in a tent down by the river, for like two months, until somebody came and burned it down.” Eventually, he wound up in prison, and with nowhere else to go upon his release, he came to City Mission. “This is one of the best opportunities I’ve ever had in my life,” he said of his experience at the Mission. “I am blessed, because there is no other place that you could get what you get here.” Since arriving, Robert has restored his relationship with Christ, worked on his recovery, earned a forklift operator certification and an OSHA Agriculture certificate, coordinated the Mission’s Big Brother mentorship program, and acted as a Resident Assistant, helping to mentor newer intakes. “I’ve seen people come in here who were very successful when they left,” he said, “and I believe I can be one of those people.” Robert was well on his way to independence and a transformed life, but, in November, he tested positive for the Coronavirus. He got really sick and had to be quarantined, but every day, someone from the Mission came to check on him. That care and compassion from the staff impacted him even more than all of the opportunities the Mission had made available to him. “I never realized what Agape love is until now,” he explained. “I’ve come around positive people that are believers, and they really helped me a lot…It’s just totally unreal.” “if you have patience,” Robert added, “God will give you not what you want but what you need.” Robert has capitalized on his opportunities here at City Mission and has turned his life around. You can help our residents, just like Robert, restore their lives and renew their hope. Visit www.citymission.org or call 724-222-8530 to find out how you can help.

Garrick Gets Another Chance

April 9, 2021

Garrick had a happy childhood, growing up in Beaver County, and going to church with his family. Life was good. But then, in high school, he made some bad decisions, fell in with the wrong crowd, and got into drugs and alcohol. His life went off course, and he even had to drop out of college. Eventually, his addiction took everything away from him. “My life went downhill really fast because of addiction,” he said. “Basically, it escalated to the point in my 20s and early 30s that I pretty much like burned every bridge with everybody I had in my life. I was in and out of rehab, sleeping on people’s couches, sleeping outside on the street if I had to.” At one point, Garrick managed to stay clean and sober for almost five years. During that time, he met someone and had two beautiful children. He had a job and was creating a good life for himself and his family. “That short time period proved to me that life can be good and worth living,” he explained. “And that there is another way to live.” And then, he relapsed, and his life, once again, spun out of control. “It got to a point where my life was so bad that I needed to try something different,” he said, “because life, the way I was living it, was pretty terrible.” After addiction tore his life and his family apart, Garrick, with nowhere else to turn, came to City Mission in 2018. He stayed for over a year. He got clean and then he moved out. But the everyday battle with addiction lead to a relapse in a very short time. “I basically fell flat on my face again,” he said. “But when I was here the first time, I was doing what I had to do for the addiction side but without God in my life.” Garrick had been very closed-minded about the spiritual aspect of his recovery. He had grown up in the church, but when addiction grabbed ahold of him, he blamed God. “I was like how could God let this happen to me,” he recalled, and he had a difficult time opening his heart back up to God. But when he came back to the Mission for the second time, he came in with a very different perspective. “I was so broken by the time I got back here again that it was like a light bulb went off in my head,” he explained. “Through my trials and tribulations, I basically learned how to open my mind up to the idea that there is a God. I thought to myself, I need to try something different, because whatever I was doing before wasn’t working. I hated myself for so long and I feel like that’s what became natural for me was hating myself. Until I came back here and was here for a couple weeks.” As seen with many addiction journeys, it took two tries for Garrick to turn his life around. But he knew that City Mission was the place where a new life was possible. “Before coming to the Mission, I was broken. Since coming here, I’m finally happy. Happy that I restored my relationship with the Lord. It’s definitely better when you have God on your side.” Now that Garrick has his life back on track, he wants to give back and help other people. He is looking to go back to school for drug and alcohol counseling or nursing. “I truly believe that I need to do something that helps people. Because I’ve had a lot of jobs that didn’t help people and I was miserable,” he said. “I think the biggest thing that I learned at the Mission is how to help others.” Garrick is a new creation. You can help others just like him to turn their lives around at City Mission. Visit www.citymission.org to find out how.

Today I Have Hope

January 27, 2021

“I can honestly say that I’ve been depressed most of my life,” Carmella said. She was abused as a child and experienced the death of two husbands in her lifetime. Her first husband died of lung cancer when he was just 38 years old. “Death and grieving have been like a big part of my story,” she noted. Over the years, Carmella turned to drugs to ease the pain of her grief. “Drugs weren’t my problem,” she explained. “They were my solution.” But eventually, the drugs took over and derailed her life. When she was clean, she was successful. She is well-educated. She worked in various careers. She was a counselor, an administrative assistant, a corrections officer. But drugs ripped her life apart, and in 2017, she found herself homeless. “I never thought that my life would turn out the way that it has.” Eventually, she found her way to City Mission, and she has started to put the pieces of her life back together. She has a job and is going to counseling to manage her grief and depression. She is working the steps to stay clean. “The Mission has given me the opportunity to look at how full my life is instead of how little my life is,” she said. “I’m not focusing on what I don’t have. I’m looking at what I have to be grateful for.” Carmella has two daughters, 33 and 15, who are her biggest supporters. “My children understand addiction because we’ve been through it for so long. They’ve seen me at my best. They’ve seen me at my worst. And they’re proud of me now.” She is also working to complete a degree in social work so she can help people who have suffered like she has suffered. “If I can just be a better mother to my children, a better child of God and to be able to get into social work somewhere where I can help people like me, that’s what I’d like to do.” It turns out, Carmella’s life was always fuller and richer than her grief ever let her realize, and now she is finally filled with hope and a promise for the future. “I don’t see myself as a failure anymore,” she said. “I don’t see myself as a burden. I’m able to give back where I took so much. This time last year, I was hopeless. I was depressed. I was spiritually bankrupt. I was gloom. I was doom. And today I have hope.” “This is a place of restoration. This is a place of giving life to the lifeless.”

Our Residents' Journeys

Our mission is to serve our residents. We continue to be amazed by their strength and courage, and we love to see God working in their lives! Read some of their stories and learn about their journey to the Mission and on to independent living.