Connect The Dots

My vision is to bring communities together to help homeless individuals with permanent and replicable solutions. I want to crowd-source the best ideas and practices. The goal is to build a movement, an infrastructure that will survive long after any one individual’s involvement.

People will continue to become homeless. They just don’t need to stay that way.

I have been asked if I was starting a nonprofit. My reply is always, “Nope! I want to start a revolution.”

One final note. Homeless initiatives have been a passion of mine for some time. This project also has a second aspect. I hope my journey inspires YOU to “do something” concerning whatever you are passionate about; to look for new ways to solve old problems.

What's My Goal?

We don’t need to find a “cure” to homelessness. This isn’t a disease that requires millions of dollars and decades of research. Housing is a basic human right that should be available to everyone today. 

I want to discover the best ways to help those in need on the local level, then get them access to services that already exist. If a service doesn’t exist locally, what will it take to make it available?

On one side we have those in need. On the other side is that help. My goal…is simply to figure out the best way to, “Connect the Dots”.

I don’t have the answers, but they are out there! Here’s my plan.

Continue

Latest Blog Posts

Why My Plan Is So Important

A couple recent articles crystallize why my plan is so important to help the homeless. The first one is something you see and hear almost daily, the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) crowd. However this time it became absurd. A local non-profit teamed with with City of Tulsa to use a former nursing home as a shelter for between 50 and 75 households who are on a waiting list for permanent housing.
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Literally Connecting the Dots

There are reasons you see and hear about the need to build more housing for those experiencing homelessness, it’s easier to provide services to a group of people in the same location, hence the idea of transitional housing. We need to do more Scattered Housing. To do that we need to cover transportation needs. There’s a challenge though in having people spread all over town. It’s a problem, but one that has a simple answer; provide the transportation. It’s literally that simple….and it isn’t. Let me explain.
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Poverty Porn

"Poverty porn"...I had never heard that term until earlier this month. A social worker mentioned the term when I was talking to them about highlighting specific individuals experiencing homelessness and how a people could help them. Later that day I looked up the meaning of that phrase. Here is Cy Alcala's definition from an Medium article a couple years ago... Poverty porn is a concept used to refer to sensational media content, typically using a voyeuristic, schadenfreude-style viewpoint when portraying poverty to generate controversy and traffic and it is exploited by filmmakers, advertisers, and others for profit.
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My Superpower & My Crappy Tuesday

In my career as a salesperson, I had a motto that went like this: "I don't sell anything, "I figure $*&% out." What I meant by that is I don't have all the answers, but I will go get whatever is needed. I was tenacious, persistent, and creative. That’s a hell of a combination. I call it my superpower.
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We Do This For Dogs – Why Not Cindy?

If you've spent even 10 minutes with me you know what a huge dog person I am. Friends, family members, former coworkers and even clients know the story of my beloved Baxter who I said goodbye to last March after 16 years. So it stands to reason I would be on top of dog rescues, right? Of course....but it got me thinking. Why isn't there the same thing for people?
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What is a Refugee?

Over the past two years, Americans from every part of the country have responded enthusiastically to the call to welcome Afghan families, Ukrainians displaced by war, and others fleeing persecution.
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