Good morning, Welcome, welcome, welcome idiots at time now for our community connection right here on K one. The one you trust and which is today is Mike Shornson. He's the program director for n and Mayah Community Development. And Mike, my goodness sake, what a great story you have about helping people trying to get ready to help themselves. Tell us a little bit about me and Mayah Community Development.
Yeah, we've been working since twenty ten. Our goal, we say, we want to provide hope, health and housing to the people in Washington County.
Huh.
We start in twenty ten.
It started with Orlando Parker who began it just wanting to help. He saw people coming out of jail that had no idea how to function. They didn't have a job, they didn't have a car, they didn't have any way to just function in society, and they're trying to rebuild
their lives. So that was his goal, was just to jump in and just get in the mess with people and try to figure out what they need to help them, you know, learn how to be a good father, or learn how to you know, get a good job and have a good work ethic.
Things like that.
It led into really a focus on housing is kind of our core.
We've had men's and women's houses in.
Town, group homes where we allow people to we provide the housing, but then we get into all those messes of life with trying to help them with just functioning independently. Independent living is kind of our goal with people.
Well, this is a massive undertaking, and we're familiar with the tiny houses and a few of the projects that you have here in Death. Yeah, but you got a great, big wing. It's been in the work for a while. We do.
Yeah, we did the cottages on sixth Street on West.
If anybody goes west on Adams, they see the little bright colored.
Homes over there.
We built affordable housing, thank you. We built those started in twenty seventeen. There's twenty of those units now that are affordable. And when we started that project, we saw the need come out. When he opened the first three, we had like near one hundred applicants for those and a lot of people who even if they weren't homeless, they were couch hopping or things, they didn't make enough to be able to live independently in town.
So we saw that big need.
So the next step that we went to besides our men's and women's homes.
As we went and bought the Emerald.
Hotel, it was formerly an Emerald Hotel that was abandoned up on seventy five in Tuxedo, and so we've owned that. We are in kind of grant process for now right now trying to get our funding to do the big work over there.
But that's going to be a kind of group.
Home process, transitional housing basically where we can fit up to one hundred and forty people in that facility, and it'll be a three step process basically for people to move into independent living. So they start, they come in, they're coming out of rehab, they're coming out of homelessness, they come out of jail, sometimes with mental health court or something like that, and we're helping them with mental
health issues, substance issues. We're also working with them on learning how to get a job, learning how to you know, getting their driver's license, getting their ged, various things to that they're ready to be an independent member of society.
So we're working on that.
That'll be like a three step process so they're ready by the time they're done and they move out of that facility, they're ready to get their own apartment, they've got their own car, and they're they're working, they're doing everything they.
Can do to be productive members of society.
Right now, we're kind of looking for a little bit of generosity on behalf of the people in the community to kind of help out because the way you haven't set up, I understand you've got you're moving yet, yeah, and it's like life is hitting you like a sledgehammer all over again. But you're taking a thirty day pause on some of this stuff, right.
Yeah, So when people move into our prayer right now, we have a men's in a women's house and it'll just amplify when the hotel opens. But people come into our program, they usually vast majority do not have a job.
They either come out of jail or homelessness or out of rehab or something like that, and when they come in don't have any ability to pay for anything themselves, but we don't and we do move them towards getting a job, but that first thirty days we really want them to focus on doing the program, just deal with whatever mental health issues, substance use issues, whatever brings them
in the program. We usually find we need to focus on some of that first before they're off working all day, and so we want them to take that first thirty days and not work. But if we do that, then the housing fees they have to pay, like we have.
A mortgage today and all that.
So when they're paying their housing fees and transportation fees, now they're behind thirty days in. They get a job thirty or sixty days in, and now they're already in debt, and that is to set up for failure financially for them.
So what we're trying to do is raise some support that allows us to help both pay off some debts for some of our people in the program now and also set up scholarships so that when people come in we can say, don't work your first thirty days, that money is taken care of.
Work on you, Yeah, so work on you for thirty We're going to trust me.
We want them to work because that's part of the program as you're expected to figure out how to find a job, and we're teaching them work ethic, we're teaching them how to do their resume and all that stuff.
So we're going to be moving them there.
We want them to have a little breathing room, so they're not panicking because some people it's stressful to them right off the bat, like I gotta get working and that's all they get focused on because they don't like feeling like they're in debt. So we want them to be able to relax and say, hey, people have taken care of your first thirty days. You just focus on you that thirty days is up. We're expecting you to get a job and we'll get to work and we're going.
To do all those other pieces.
So yeah, we're asking if there's people who are open to donating, that would be a huge blessing to our participants and it would help bridge some gaps for them. I know they would greatly appreciate it. It would be a huge relief some of our participants now who are working hard and are now in jobs, but also still it's like yeah, yeah they are, And then I think you know a lot of them, it's a struggle some people.
If you have a criminal history or different things, like there's a limit to what jobs people are willing to get you, and a lot of them they may not schooling. It's going to take some time for them to get their ged or do some of the things they need to get a quality job, and so it's a long process sometimes with people. And the more flexibility we can give them to say, you're working on the ethic of it, you're practicing, you're working hard, you're doing you're responsible, you're
doing what you need to do. But to take some of that pressure off of them so they're not panicking right.
Away and going what am I going to do? I can't this feels overwhelming.
When we can make it feasible for them, then I find they thrive in that because they feel like somebody's given them a chance.
This is great. It's a Neilmiya Communitydevelopment dot Com is where you can go and we'll have a little link on the website there that there will also kind of you bring that out more prominently in the news story. That way, you just click on there and you can find out the information and you can make your decision as to whether or not you're going to help out. I really think that this is a great way for those who are doing okay to help about our brothers and sisters who are trying to do okay.
Yeah, and that's that's who we're looking for.
I mean, is the people who they want out that they they that they need support, they need a leg up on how to get out, and so we're here to provide that bridge to help them move into independent living.
Now, how did you get drawn to this, Mike Sorenton? You know, heck a guy, nice fella, and you waded into some pretty deep water here, young man.
Maybe I like it though.
I well, my background, I'm a licensed professional counselor.
That was what my degree was in.
I got a licensed I used to run a counseling practice up on the East Coast, but I moved here ten years ago to go on staff at Grace Community Church. Actually, so I was doing small groups pastoring, still did some counseling and things over there, and probably probably six years ago or so, I got familiar with what Neamia was doing in town and met some of their participants, and I started to do in relationship classes for them.
They now jokingly call me doctor Love.
Sometimes because as that was their introduction to me.
As I would come every Wednesday morning and do a relationship class and we talk about conflict resolution and things like that, and I just came to really love the people there and love the work they were doing. So as this new project this past year with the Hotel Orlando Parker who started it. We were good friends and we would meet regularly and talk, and I started feeling the leading, like God was leading me, like you need
to be more involved in this. So I transitioned in January to work full time for Nehemiah and out of Grace. Grace is still a big supporter what we do so in local missions, and so that's been a really good connection there. There's still my church and everything, but it kind of blends this weird combination of my background in both pastoral and counseling and I like strategic leadership kind of stuff. So it ends up bringing all of those kind of gifts together in the same place.
So I really loved being part of it.
It sounds like you are where you need to be.
I feel that way. Yeah.
Wow, wait, that's a pretty cool story. But once again, folks, I want you to remember this website. It's Neomia Communitydevelopment dot Com. It's kind of long, but if you can remember that Neamyah Communitydevelopment dot Com, you can follow along and follow a little bit more into detail what we've been discussing here on the air, and then right there on the website. If you wish to donate, there's a place where you can do that too, and that would
be so greatly appreciating. Man. I tell you what, there are a lot of folks in this day and age that need help like this. They're just right on that edge. I can either succeed or I can fall back to where I have been and start all over again. And nobody really wants to do that. So let's kind of get people over the finish line.
Yeah, it's hard, messy work sometimes, I think, but we've said a few just come out of rehab, they have some tools, they come out Okay, I'm ready to get clean. But then they don't have a job, they don't have a car, they don't have any income or place to stay. They very quickly, even no matter how good their rehab was, they don't have the ability to make it work.
They're going to go back to the people they know.
And so we find they revert back to an old way of life because just no one helped bridge that gap. And that's kind of where we come in. We really love to get into the messy part that no one wants.
To get in there sometimes, to get in there.
And deal with all of that, But that's what we have a passion for, Like, let's get in there with them all these various things that come up, and let's try to help give them a leg up, give them a pathway forward, and if they'll take it and accept the help. I find it's amazing the stories we've seen the people in our.
Program that have stuck that out and worked at it.
We got people working in our office now that graduated our program that are doing a lot of the work for us right now that are amazing. Every one of them has crazy, amazing testimonies of what they've been through.
And you wouldn't believe it.
You see them now, and you not believe the stories they tell where they used to One of our lads of works in our office now said she used to as a homeless addict, would sneak into the hotel that we bought sometimes to try and sleep in there. And now she's helping us build this whole program over there. So we have these stories of just people who come out of just seemingly hopeless situations.
That are now living really productive, great lives.
And that's what energizes me, is to see that kind of transformation is an amazing thing.
Well, you know something. First of all, it's been a pleasure getting to know you a little bit better today. Mike, Mike Sorenson has been our guest program director with me and my Community Development Don't be a stranger, all right.
We would love to be back, all right.
Thank you very much for being with us year on our Community Connection. Mild weather day coming up for most of it. We'll finally see a little bit of sunshine before