BY JOHN BAILEY
Catawba County United Way
HICKORY – In her mid-40s, Keisha Singletary decided she’d had enough of the lifestyle that had left her hooked on drugs, in an unhealthy relationship and incarcerated for six years.
“I wanted to know how it feels to be productive and to live sober and to be happy,” she said.
So, in March of 2019, Singletary decided to go back to The Salvation Army’s Shelter of Hope, a Catawba County United Way funded program. It would be her third time through the system.
Last year, 318 people were counted during the annual Point in Time (PIT) count of homeless individuals in Catawba County, according to Teena Willis, Housing Development Manager for Partners Behavioral Health Management. This includes those living in shelters and those living outdoors.
The Housing Visions Continuum of Care group is preparing to conduct this year’s PIT count on Jan. 30. Besides data collected, the event identifies gaps in services as well as barriers that prevent individuals and families from becoming successfully housed.
For Singletary, the barrier she faced her first two times – starting in 2015 – through these services was her attitude.
“I was playing around a lot when I first got to the shelter. I wasn’t being productive. I wasn’t looking for a job. I was very angry and stayed in trouble a lot,” she said.
The root of her anger had always been addiction, which eventually led her to a North Carolina prison cell in 2008.
“When I got out (in 2014), I was angry because I couldn’t get a job,” Singletary said. “I couldn’t get a place to stay, and I didn’t want to stay with my parents. I was angry because nobody would give me a chance.”
Assistant Shelter Director David Pearsall said this isn’t unusual for clients with a criminal background.
“It’s definitely one of the drawbacks, and it gets them down, but they just have to keep moving forward,” Pearsall said.
“They may not succeed the second time of even the third time, but if they keep trying, one of the time’s they’re going to succeed.”
In 2018, The Salvation Army Shelter of Hope served 580 clients with 39 percent able to move into housing, according to a United Way End-of-Year report for the program.
Singletary was determined to be a success story, but it wouldn’t be easy.
She would have to pull herself out of a bad second marriage and finally hit bottom as an addict.
It wasn’t until she got divorced that Singletary started to inch back towards a life of meaning.
At that point, she was done making wrong choices. Embracing her faith in God and moving into the shelter a third time was the only way she could see of breaking this downward cycle.
“I realized people aren’t going to help if you don’t help yourself,” Singletary said. “David and Carrie (Workman, Shelter Services Case Manager) saw what I was striving to be, who I wanted to become, and they believed in me and that encouraged me to believe in myself again.”
She went through this last trip at the Shelter of Hope with a focused mind. She worked the programs offered and met her first goal of getting a job. She found work at Goodwill. Singletary learned about the opportunity from Safe Harbor, another local non-profit who partners with the shelter. Safe Harbor provides programing to help women in transitional situations to find emotional help, housing and work.
This was a resource Singletary originally ignored.
“I wanted to get out and drink a beer and get high. I didn’t want to go to Safe Harbor when I was at the shelter the first two times,” Singletary said.
When Singletary eventually left the shelter in the fall of 2019, along with having a job, she was able to purchase a car and move into her own place, Workman said.
Once she decided to make the most of the opportunities the shelter and other local non-profit agencies offered her, Singletary found the life she’d always wanted.
“I don’t have an attitude anymore. I’m not angry anymore. I’m liberated, and people see that,” she said. “When you treat people with respect you get respect back. When you love people, they love you back.”
For more information on how to help with this year’s PIT homeless count or support the agencies involved, call the Catawba County United Way, 828-327-6851, or Partners Behavioral Health Management, 828-323-8084.
In picture - Assistant Director at The Salvation Army's Shelter of Hope, David Pearsall, checks in with KeishaSingletary who was going through her third stay at the shelter last summer. Singletary successfully left the program this past fall, with a job, her own place and her own car.