PPTFH Highlights Local ‘Success Stories’ at Latest Meeting

This Article is the First of a Three-Part Series Detailing the Shared Stories

By LILY TINOCO | Assistant Editor

Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness invited community members to hear client “success stories” during its latest meeting on Monday evening, November 14.

With a goal of sharing uplifting news around the holiday season, PPTFH invited Glanda Sherman, Jennifer Dukes and Jessi Cortez—members of the Outreach Team from The People Concern—to highlight a few clients, their progress and their journey from “homelessness to housed.”

“Tonight’s meeting is special,” Co-President Sharon Browning said at the start of the meeting. “Tonight, we will take a break from understanding the problems and solutions related to homelessness, and we will focus on what I think of as the heart and soul of our mission … We will focus on those residents who have experienced homelessness but are now housed or are on their pathway to being housed.”

Sherman then explained that The People Concern empowers the most vulnerable to improve their quality of life, ensuring they are “housed, healthy and safe.” She invited meeting attendees to take a glimpse into the lives of three program participants, some of whose timelines date back to 2016.

Notably, Sherman said 2016 marked the start of the Outreach Team, the first engagement and collaboration between The People Concern and PPTFH.

Cortez introduced the first program participant of the evening, Kenneth Sly, or Kenny.

“Kenny, like a lot of our clients, has been through a lot of trauma,” Cortez shared, “but that has not stopped him from moving forward.”

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960, Sly said he experienced Hurricane Betsy and has suffered a number of injuries, but he remains focused on helping other people.

“To tell them … it’s time to [detox] your system, clean out your life,” he said. “You can die on the streets, you can lose focus on [the] streets. I had places where I was addicted to drinking, drugs and stuff like that, and more or less, you end up dead … Coming back from so many problems and running across dead people, it gives you the ambition to stay alive, to survive.”

With his housing voucher, Sly said he is looking forward to being able to cook and eat. He shared that he is a chef and elaborated on a time in his life that he ran different businesses. Losing those opportunities taught him to “re-struggle, re-evaluate and re-commit” to his passions.

“The best thing to understand about the homeless is that homeless people [are] not without hope, not without prayer,” he said. “I’m most grateful that God exists. That God exists and shows me that the things I lost [do] come back tenfold, and that it’s not through just what people [have given] me, it’s what I earn.”

Cortez said since Sly has been with the team, he has made many strides, and he hopes to see him housed in the near future.

“Each and every individual is unique in their journey,” Dukes concluded. “It’s our position as outreach to support these individuals and address some of their immediate needs … It is about empowering people and trusting their abilities to succeed.”

Two additional stories will be printed in future editions of the paper, highlighting success stories covered in the meeting.