Jonathan, we're here in the Youth Homeless Facility. How'd you end up homeless?
I ended up homeless because my family and I weren't getting along.
When I got into my teens, I guess my views compared to my family views completely changed.
And after a certain while, they just said I couldn't live there anymore.
And I've been homeless for almost a year now and now I've been at this homeless shelter for almost a month now.
How old are you?
I'm 20.
And so what were the views or whatever that changed between you and your parents?
The views that changed were pretty much, you know, I wasn't being productive enough with my life.
I would sit around and just play games and go smoke pot and all this stuff, you know.
And I wasn't getting what I needed to do done.
One of the big problems was in my dropping out of high school, which I strongly regret.
And I think that was the biggest issue with them.
Made some bad choices?
Yeah. Not only with family, but within the law too.
So tell me what life's like on the streets.
It's difficult because if a shelter doesn't have room, you sleep on the streets.
You don't have the money to get, you know, your necessities, you know, food, you know, bathing, stuff like that.
And it's hard because I grew up in a house where I had everything.
And now I have whatever I have with me in my pockets or just, you know, if I can.
It's mostly just, you know, I have to scrounge up money however I can now these days.
It's hard. It's a lot harder because you don't have what you used to have, you know.
What are you doing to get out of this situation?
I'm going to college. The shelter here, you know, they help us with financial aid, you know, with food and a bit of place to sleep.
But they also, you know, they help us get into colleges, get our GED if we've dropped out of high school and stuff like that.
So you're working on your GED now?
I actually have my GED and now I'm just working on getting a job and getting into college.
Ray, what do you get a major in? What do you?
I want to major in automotive. I love cars, so I hope I'm going to go do a two-year program for automotive.
Yeah, automotive college, pretty much.
If you had three wishes, what would they be?
If I had three wishes, my first wish would be that I wish that me and my family could get along again, especially me and my brother.
My second wish is I wish my family would get back together.
And my third wish is for everybody here who's at the shelter, I wish them the best of luck with their paths on whichever way they decide to go.
And I hope they all become successful in one way or another.
Thank you very much for talking to me.
My problem.
