She will be the President of the United States, she informed neighbors at our 2021 National Night Out block party. She's 13 years old. While staying at Haven Housing's St. Anne’s Place family shelter, she plans for a bright future, with a big smile, a hard-working mom, and a circle of people who carry hope for her in our hearts.
Another teenager didn’t envision the opportunities ahead of her until she moved into Haven Housing’s Ascension Place in her sixties. Born and raised in Minnesota, she was naive the first time she was sex trafficked. She was 13 years old. For more than four decades, she was put on the track, she informed me. First, she was taken cross country with a fake I.D as a teenager, stripping in clubs and then call services to meet with strange men.
This year, Haven Housing is commemorating 40 years of service to children and women who are single or mothering. Forty years of supporting limitless dreams.
When I applied for the position of Executive Director one year ago, I shared with our Board of Directors that I believe we all come from common ground. We all want respite from crisis and to be part of a community that allows for healing when bad things happen. I said if I were lucky enough to get the job, we would need to dream through adversity, as we sometimes have to do. I named a three-year goal of making sure the dreams of every Haven Housing child were limitless, including being a future presidential candidate. For these 13-year-olds, in age and spirit, the first step is believing they can be anything they want to be.
Little did I know that within my first year, I would meet the girl who had formed her presidential dream with her mother's support before she lived under our roof. Nor did I know that I would meet the woman who was now confident and well enough to move out of our Ascension Place supportive housing into senior housing. A woman whose pain as a 13 year old has quieted over the past 40 years. A woman who speaks of her self-esteem returning, whose sobriety and wellbeing stabilized under our roof.
We are committed to working as hard as moms do, both to meet basic needs and correct the injustices deeply rooted in our community. We do so knowing that the future can be bright. How could we not think that way when one day, 40 years from now, we will be able to inform neighbors that the President once slept here.