“My dad and I moved to Washington when my parents’ marriage fell apart.” That’s how Tommy’s* story started.
Tommy and his dad moved to Washington because they had a relative who offered them a place to stay for 6 months. Washington seemed like the perfect opportunity for a fresh start, so they uprooted their lives and drove northwest. Half a year later Tommy had landed a job, but his father was still unemployed. Without the money to cover first and last month’s rent with a deposit, they found themselves homeless.
For a month they slept in their car in parks and parking lots. Since they were new to the area, they were unfamiliar with the community resources for homeless. They never expected to be homeless. At Kitsap Community Resources Tommy found a brochure with information about free meals. Reading that paper was the first time Tommy ever heard about The Coffee Oasis. The following Friday Tommy visited the Poulsbo Oasis Center. The first thing Tommy remembers about The Coffee Oasis was the huge smiles of the staff. He was there for food, but soon discovered that there was a case manager that could work with him to find housing.
The following week Tommy was living in the Oasis Youth Shelter. It provided him the stability to continue his employment and work with his case manager to find permanent housing. In two weeks Tommy and his dad were connected with an apartment where they are currently living.
Now that he has stable housing, Tommy is able to focus on his next goal: taking classes at Olympic College to become a welder. He says he has been reading about the flux core welding method and the best welding tools and can’t wait to get started. And for the cherry-on-top, after sharing his story at an event for The Coffee Oasis, Olympic College offered Tommy a scholarship for his first year of school!
*youth’s name changed to respect identity
Read this story and fell in tears as it is very similar to my families story.its now been 4 months since we’ve all moved to washington not knowing much about this place,we was offered a to good to be true offer from a some what of a family memeber that turned out to be horrible?. Leaving us in a rush to get a place of our own with not much of income and just a suit case of clothes..found somewhere and its been a struggle, leaving us feeling if we are gonna be able to make the next months rent.housing and dshs isnt much of help but makes things more difficult for the situation, now hearing about this program and reading this story of tommy and his dad makes me feel there is some kine of hopes,one thing im not a teenager but i do have teen kids and i would love to look more into this place for guidance…Im thankful that someone has opened to something like this and to know who ever came up with this idea,glad to know your human with great heart,because now days its hard to find people like this out there…