When Sandi, a resident in Sasha Bruce Youthwork’s Passages Program, heard about a lottery for the opportunity to speak with the Honorable Valerie Jarrett, Chief Executive Officer of The Obama Foundation and longest serving White House Senior Advisor in history, she wasn’t sure if she should enter.
After all, other residents in Passages, which offers long-term, community-based housing and wraparound support for young adults ages 18-24 years old, were applying, and the chance of her winning seemed low. But her case manager, Saisha, and the Passages’ program manager, Roderick, encouraged her to throw her name into the hat. She applied, believing the opportunity would fall to whomever deserved it.
Turns out, it was Sandi. And when she heard she’d won?
“I was a crying mess,” she said. “It was such a huge opportunity. I’ve never had people believe in me enough to put me in these spaces.”
It’s common for youth who have experienced homelessness to feel as if they’re facing their situation on their own. And Sandi has experienced dark times on her own. At times she feels as if she and her peers have been forgotten. “With all the world’s issues going on, people will say, ‘Who cares about your anxiety? Who cares about this?’ But these things matter in the everyday life of young people.”
Emotions running high, Sandi found her voice. She had an incredibly powerful conversation with Ms. Jarrett and, yes, even shed a few tears.
“Ms. Jarrett confirmed we all need supportive people around us. More so than just mindset and understanding. She told me: ‘this may be your right now, but it won’t be your forever.’ It really moved me. Even my ‘right now’ is way better than a year ago, way better than it was.”
Prior to her entry into Passages, Sandi had been homeless for a year, living on the streets and for a time in the public shelter. “That was rough,” she said simply.
When introduced to Passages and Sasha Bruce staff, she accessed resources that helped her move out of homelessness. She received housing and supportive services and could focus not only on stabilization, but on her dreams of one day creating a nonprofit focused on serving youth, primarily Black boys and men in the Northeast and Southeast areas of the District. “I want to be a force in my community, talked about by the impact I’ve made.”
Sandi’s conversation with Ms. Jarrett did touch on nonprofit management, but also confidence and goal setting. “She reinforced that I am the creator of my own destiny and said, ‘No one can tell you that you won’t exceed your wildest dreams if you just believe in yourself.’ And she kept, very subtly, repeating about running for local office, which is something I’ve looked into, something I’d love to do to be more impactful. Not politics and the nonprofit at one time, because something’s going to have to give, but I have these big dreams that everyone told me wasn’t possible. But Ms. Jarrett said, ‘Don’t ever let anyone tell you dream too big.’… I received that message wholeheartedly.”
Sandi knows she’s in the right place – Sasha Bruce Youthwork – to accomplish her goals. Passages staff support her, counsel her, and encourage her to follow her dreams. “About a year ago, I was in a rough place…. I couldn’t take care of myself.” But she found support through Passages, her case manager and other staff. “They said, ‘hey, don’t worry about buying laundry detergent, don’t worry about buying cleaning supplies. We got you. We’re here to support you.’ It’s something I haven’t really had throughout my life.”
This makes her appreciate what Valerie Jarrett’s advice and Sasha Bruce’s services have done for her. “I am the product of people who didn’t give up on me.”
The conversation has inspired her to keep being honest and keep giving back. “Someone has cared about me enough to tell me the truth, and not everyone has that. My only plea is not to give up on telling young people the truth. One day it might click, one day they might understand, and one day they might thank you for telling them the truth because they don’t have the framework to understand it now. But just keep caring and keep speaking the truth because you don’t know who can rise above it and be the most amazing person ever.”
If Sandi could take one thing from her conversation with Ms. Jarrett, it’s that her experiences don’t determine who she is or how she should feel about herself. “I’ve rooted a lot of shame in my homelessness…. A very deep shame. Now I’m at a point where the last thing I want to do is push that idea that people have to be a certain way in order to be successful, because success means different things for different people.”
It’s clear that this conversation with Ms. Jarrett has impacted Sandi and her vision of her future. She’s got advice for others in similar situations: “You can burn down and rise up and burn down and rise up, and that’s literally just a part of life, like a Phoenix. Thinking that you have to have it all one way by this time is foolish…. Focus on yourself and take care of yourself and don’t compare yourself to anybody else…. If it feels good to you… you’re not hurting yourself, you’re not hurting anybody else… that’s probably your path and you should walk it.”
