As Vice President of Programming Wylie Belasik speaks at the inaugural Chicago chapter run, Philadelphia member Kenny Herder waits on.
Nov. 14-20 is National Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Week. As part of our effort to continue to further the dialogue around homelessness, this week we are hosting Personal Reflections on Homelessness here on the Back on My Feet blog.
For this series, we have asked one BOMF member in each city to reflect on their experience of homelessness.
Kenny Herder – Philadelphia Ridge Team
Kenny’s story is a remarkable one.
When Kenny joined BOMF in September of 2008, he was still struggling with his bi-polar disorder and self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. However, instead of turning inward, Kenny grew outward.
Though his journey hasn’t been without bumps, he now lives independently with his brother and has been employed for more than a year without missing a day of work. Kenny remains active in the BOMF program and recently spoke at the launch of the Chicago chapter.
Below, we speak to Kenny about homelessness, Back on My Feet and feature a video interview with him about his journey.
How would you describe the experience of being homeless in Philadelphia?
“Imagine your house, now open it up to 40 people you don’t know to move in, people who are up all hours of the night, some depressed, some high, nobody trusting – that’s what it felt like.
When I came in, it was me against the world, I wanted to blame everyone but myself, but my family said enough was enough and I had to sort myself out, I was angry, sad and depressed all at once.
The first night, I couldn’t sleep. You are in a controlled environment, where you are surrounded, but isolated all at once, its hard.”
What were people’s personalities like?
“There are some people who feel that being homeless is alright, they stay in denial and pretend. I knew I wanted better and seeing that mentality inspired me to get out of there and not go down that road.
Nobody wants to be homeless, but when those circumstances happen, I was grateful that the shelter was there as bad as it was. Not everyone is bad, the staff do what they can, but it can be difficult.
I don’t want to say that everyone in a shelter is bad, that the staff is bad, and so on. If Ridge wasn’t there, I would have had nowhere to go.
What was the impact of coming into contact with Back on My Feet?
“When you’re in that position (in shelter), it’s tough to get back up, the program was a hand up, not a hand-out.
It gave me hope and opportunity in the face of despair, I was recognized as a person and my success was based off what I earned, I got back into the race for my own life.
Kenny shared a bit about his journey with Back on My Feet and feelings about its importance on video. Watch it below.
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