What's Next?

I was standing in one corner of the five-and-a-half acres on Middleground Road looking all of the way across the newly completed complex and marveling at its scope and beauty. 48 apartments will house chronic homeless people. The white and blue structures sit upon lavish, landscaped, green space where homeless children will play. Today the first residents begin moving in.

Over the years, Union Mission has done a lot of building or renovations of existing structures. Some of them really stand out to me. Phoenix Place houses people living with AIDS and was almost all volunteer development that made it happen. The J. C. Lewis Health Center remains one of the only stand-alone respite centers for a chronic needs population. The Behavioral Health Center inspires awe because of its sheer scope.

But Dutchtown is Union Mission's master piece. Homeless people will no longer have to live in a shelter, which is nothing more than a ware house for human beings. They will now live in their own brand new homes. Homes that any of us would be fine living in.

For the past several months, every time that I am on the Dutchtown campus, cars pull in and people ask for applications to move in. They are military families, college students, or regular folk looking for a place to live. When we tell them the conditions of residency, you must have a chronic diagnosis of some kind, they don't grasp what we are saying. I am fond of saying that we will work until the homeless have a place to call home. Dutchtown is that place!

As I walked through it yesterday, I could not help but think of all of the changes. Union Mission looks nothing like it did 21 years ago when I first came to work here. It looks nothing like it did 10 years ago. Or 5 years ago. Or even 3 years ago! I am proud that we continue to work to meet the needs that come to us and continue to change in order to be successful.

Letitia Robinson drove up at that moment. She has been the person in charge of the development for us. I asked her to walk with me and shared with her these thoughts. Then we pointed to an undeveloped parcel of the property. That is what is next, we agreed.