A Future after 25 Years on the Streets

Brenda was 15 years old when she ran away from home in Cincinnati, Ohio.  She didn’t know there were places she could go for help, so she started trading sex for food and a place to stay.  Eventually she was addicted to crack and trapped in her addiction.  Brenda spent 25 years on the streets trying to survive.  “I’ve been raped, beaten and disrespected,” she says.  She had a friend who was in the Off the Streets^SM program and encouraged her to join the program too.

The Off the Streets^SM program, she says, “has taught me how to be accountable, how to get up early, how to dress.  It has taught me about responsibilities and that I can’t dwell on the past.  I have to focus on the future.”

Brenda believes her future is looking brighter.  She wants to be dependent on herself.  She got a job cleaning at the football stadium after NFL games.  “I can’t tell you the joy I felt at getting my first paycheck.  To cash it . . . money I earned that was legal.  It was very special.”  She is planning to go back for her GED, and she’d like to do volunteer work, telling her story to help other young women.

Likewise, Brenda likes helping the new women who join the program.  She says she tries to make them more comfortable.  “We used to put on masks to deal with the streets,” she says, “and you have to take those masks off here.  You have to learn to be yourself so you can like yourself, so I try to make them feel more at ease.  I know how hard it is.”

Thank you so much for giving Brenda the opportunity to get off of the streets after 25 years.