There are many pieces to putting a person’s life back together. For Michael Dotts, it started with reaching out to get help.
“As you take advantage of resources, you get opportunities, people get to meet you, see you, but they can’t meet you and see you if you’re on the corner somewhere drinking a beer or something. They might give you a couple of dollars, but I’d rather a person come up and go, ‘Man, I can get you this job; I can get you into this house.’”
Michael has been waiting for months to get into the Section 8 housing he’s eligible to receive. He needs a $2,000 deposit to move in. “Only thing I’m waiting on right now is the promissory letter from Salvation Army. Actually, my church says they’re going to help me out as well.”
The other piece is getting through commercial truck driver’s school. Getting a job afterward requires getting a couple of felonies expunged from his record. “I’m waiting on Governor Inslee, but they said he’ll do it and I’ve got faith in that.”
Once he has his commercial drivers’ license and his record is clean, “that lets me into Metro; it lets me into these distribution companies that’s in the SoDo district. And I’m clean and sober and I’m ready to launch off and reach the limits. When the Lord blesses me to get where I’m going and I see a Real Change vendor, I’m going to give him money and let him know that I been there.”
He’s been letting other people know he’s been there and what it’s like by joining the Real Change Speakers Bureau.
“I’m happy to meet ninth-grade classrooms and universities, and I’ve even been to the transportation department. It’s opened up doors, just being a personal experienced person for homelessness and not being able to work, depression and bipolar and having PTSD.”
“I told my story to some university students. My story was so passionate that they took pictures and put me in their newspaper. I got upcoming events at detention centers, places where young people are headed in the wrong direction. I’ve made those mistakes.”
“Even though my life has been upside-down, no job, nowhere to stay, it’s all about keeping positive goals, not holding on to mistakes or failures or poor choices or confrontations. If I offend anyone and it was my fault, I apologize. It probably [would] take a lot out of me, but that’s where I’m at right now.”
He wants to get his message to more middle-class people. “A lot of people are not even looking at the fact that people out here are not wanting to beg; they just want opportunities like you guys got opportunities. [There are] a lot of things they cannot get because of mistakes that they made. I’m moving forward because of loving people I encounter, not being judgmental or profiling, accepting folks for who they are. I appreciate that everyone accepts me for what I am.”