STORY TELLERS
Antoinette Washington is a 23 year old African-American female. Today, Antoinette has a job and a home. However, just a few months ago she was on the streets. She is a prime example of someone falling through the “cracks of our social service system”. Her parents passed away when she was a young child and her grandparents adopted her and her brother. When her grandfather passed away she was tremendously impacted. Things weren’t the same. Antoinette had to fight to get money from her grandmother where her brother just got it. Antoinette began to resort to decisions that were not productive to acquire the basic necessities. When she was 16 years old, the Department of Children and Families came into her life and took her grandmother to a home for elderly. Antoinette was left to fend for herself. She asked the social worker who took her grandmother where she was supposed to go. The social worker told her “I don’t know.” Just a few months later she was abandoned by the “social services system” and left to live on the streets. She would go to friends and family for a place to live but they would kick her out. She was staying with a cousin and the cousin referred her to Villages of Hope. She was accepted into the program two days after she had finished her paper work. She was able to move into a home for the first time in six years. She has also gotten a job. Antoinette is taking classes online right now to get her high school diploma. After she receives her diploma, she would like to go to school for business management. When she graduates from college she wants to open up a daycare center.