At the church, we could only handle 15 to 18 people tops and we had to turn people away much too much. We decided as a committee that we needed to take that really big step so we located a vacant convent on Beach Avenue and convinced the Roman Catholic Diocese to rent it to us. |
Brenda said, 'Buddy, you got a lot of them now,' |
I don't see any reason to make a study of pension enhancements when the [city's fiscal] plan prohibits them. |
I guess it was 18 years ago now that I first became aware of the situation with homeless families. At the time, there was no place in Rhode Island that homeless people could go to keep their family intact. |
I think it's a real neat town, ... This is beautiful country. |
I was home sick from work, ... I perked right up. It was strange. I was jumping around and telling everybody. |
I'm so excited, ... I was flying before I ever got on that plane. |
I've always thought it would be so fun to have brothers and sisters to fight with, |
If we hadn't done anything, we would be $70 million in the hole. |
It felt like family from the first time we talked, |
It was perfect. The place is huge. There are plenty of bedrooms, a massive kitchen and a family room. |
Our father always said, 'She'll come back to us,' |
There are some amazing stories that come out of the shelter but seldom do I ever think any of them to be about myself. I usually like to fly under the radar but I guess they got me this time. |
There was a place for males and for females, but what would happen is that, if a single mother had two little girls and a 6-year-old boy and found herself homeless, the little boy could wind up by himself, in a cot next to a drug addict while the females in his family were somewhere else. I just couldn't imagine this. I mean, in a time of crisis, a family should be held together at all costs and here it was that it was the system that was forcing it apart. |
There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot frustration and anger. |