When most people think of homelessness they picture someone holding a sign on a street corner. Nancy Ramos wants Wayne County to think differently.
As the director of Family Promise of Wayne County, Nancy spends every day working with families who are one missed paycheck, one medical bill, one crisis away from losing everything. These are not strangers. They are neighbors. Parents trying to keep their kids in the same school. People who had a plan until the plan fell apart.
"The families we support are not out there somewhere. They are right here in our neighborhoods, doing everything they can to stay afloat."
This is why Family Promise created Night Without a Bed. On the evening of May 30 they are inviting our community to do something simple and uncomfortable. Spend the night sleeping in your car in the parking lot of Ginegaw Park in Walworth. Wake up at dawn. Eat breakfast together. And carry that feeling home with you.
It is not about suffering. It is about understanding. Because when you feel even a fraction of what these families feel, you stop seeing housing insecurity as someone else's problem. You start seeing it as a community responsibility.
You can also purchase and decorate a cardboard house for $50 to display at the event and enter into a competition. Houses need to be picked up between May 18 and 21 at 301 S. Main St. in Newark and need to arrive at the park by noon on May 30.
This is Katie's one local thing this week. Not just attending but telling every person she knows about it. Because Family Promise does not just need participants on May 30. They need this community to understand what they do every single day of the year.