Part 2: L.U.V., Compassion, Mercy

Continued from Part 1...

To start off, I know and have experienced and see on a daily basis that when homeless people unite we solve our own dilemmas. This is not an original statement. Others have said it and shown it in the different areas of my life where homelessness is prevalent. I also know and have experienced that individual people who are not homeless (with no other agenda but to help) have helped me and my son FAR more than established organizations. Putting the two groups together will create the changes needed to help individuals and families move from survive to thrive.

So… the idea is to create a membership site that will connect people with people. I’d like to do this through Brilliant Directories. They are a company which specializes in offering templates for membership sites the average person can customize to meet their needs. 

The way I see it, there are people with genuine needs who can have those needs met by people who can genuinely meet those needs. This isn't just about getting people food or paying bills. It is about creating community for people who need a support system to help them achieve the lives of their dreams.

This website would allow that to happen by providing anyone in need with one big support team made of two different demographics, one of other homeless people and another of people who are not homeless. There is a catch though… Anyone who enrolls on the site is automatically enrolled in the PAID 2 Parent program. 

PAID 2 Parent is an initiative of the L.U.V. L.I.F.E. Cooperative. That will be the name of the membership website and the physical offices when they are established. PAID is an acronym that means pleasure, appreciation, intelligence and dignity. These are the things I feel have been stripped from parents over the years as the focus to earn money has increased meaning the attention being given to our children is steadily decreasing.

The family is the basic unit of society and to take away a parent’s ability to successfully provide for their own is sickening. So I’ve been working on a way to provide a supplementary stream of income by offering parenting classes and other workshops designed to meet people’s needs in order for them to become the parents their children need them to be. My overall objective is for parents to achieve the life of their dreams so they can successfully navigate the way for their children to be able to do so as well. 

This program is NOT just for parents though. The reason being parenting is all about creating a relationship. And the relationship a parent creates with their child will reflect in that child’s life forever, unless something changes the way that child, as an adult, decides to interact with others. So this program will help parents not only recognize their own parenting successes and fails but it will also help people in general (parent and non-parent alike) see where their own parents succeeded and failed. Where you find success you can build. Where you find fails you can choose to change. 

It is important to note that before classes even begin, participation starts with keeping a gratitude journal. The directions are simple. Write down five things daily you are grateful for. Do not repeat anything for 10 days. Do not repeat anything more than twice in six weeks. The more specific you can be, the more successful you will be. 

Gratitude is a powerful tool. It literally changes your mind. You can go from being Negative Nelly to being Suzie Sunshine. When maneuvering through the challenges of life, it’s always better when you can imagine there's a bright side in any given situation, even when you can't see one. The biggest and best gift keeping a gratitude journal has given me is being able to express gratitude for the tough times, for the things I didn’t understand, for the trials. Do you know that once I have expressed gratitude I have been given a way over, above, around or through whatever I’m experiencing? That is how powerful expressing gratitude can be. 

Another component of the PAID 2 Parent program is to provide housing where needed. This is why I was working on a partnership with H.O.P.E.-Housing Our People Everywhere to build affordable housing where it’s possible. But let’s face it, it takes time to build anything! 

People need houses now!

There are plenty of places to live! To bridge the divide between those who do not have places to live and those who have places for rent, I’d like to create partnerships with landlords and property managers who will allow a prepay scenario with a discount. I feel like 9 months of prepaid rent should allow for three months free. That’s a tax write-off if nothing else. 

Now, I want to be clear. These places are not just any old places. I want people to find the place they want to live (within reason to meet their needs of course), not just what is available for their income. That is the problem I have with the way today’s society works. Poor people are expected to live down to a standard set by rich society. It’s not very high because the rich are not living in it and they don’t want to pay for someone else to have it as good or better than they do. Many people have spoken on the deplorable conditions of shelters. And I have seen the conditions of many places tagged as “affordable housing”. They are not to the standards I would like to live in. 

So it’s far past the time to change the perception that people who don’t make a lot of money don’t have a lot of worth. 

It’s time to close the gap between what can and cannot be achieved by those who serve the vast majority of the population in a variety of industries yet make the least amount of money.

It’s time to allow parents to be parents.

It’s time to allow children to be children. 

It’s time for families to have quality and quantity time to truly enjoy one another. 

It’s time for parents to live up to the dreams in their hearts so they can be their children’s heroes instead of some athlete, musician or star of stage or screen taking that honor.

It’s time for teachers to just be teachers. Many have families of their own but also play parents to the students in their classrooms. 

This madness has got to stop.  

The PAID 2 Parent program is designed to make all those happen. 

But that’s not all it is designed to do...

Other critical aspects of the P2P program are namely: counseling (which is mandatory), learning investing before budgeting and also relieving the participants of certain prior debts. This means if you have old bills that need to be paid in order to receive basic services such as gas, electricity, oil or water those will be paid off so you can start fresh. If you have evictions, those will be handled as well. Suspended license? Old car insurance bill? Paid! The desire with PAID 2 Parent is to create a clean slate for people to move from surviving to truly live life without limits. This is where mercy comes in. It is compassion in action!

Of course to do all this costs money and lots of it. That’s why there will also be a space on the website for investors. The return is double what you invest. This is based on the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. The return was twice the value invested. To help get the site launched I'm offering a triple return in 6 months time at the latest. I have a goal to collect $5000. That somewhat exceeds what is needed to launch a website through Brilliant Directories so it will also cover the costs of creating and distributing fliers, posters and other media to draw attention to this cause.

With it going national to start off, I’m going to need people to help get the word out and eventually to work the Cooperative offices when they are established. This is going to be HUGE. And I think it will be HUGE quite rapidly. That’s why I’m looking for people now who are interested. Pay will come. I promise. It will come sooner than you can imagine. And it will change your life. 

Now I just want you to know this overall concept is not new. It has been thought of before. This is not my original idea. I did put several twists on it though. Some of the ideas come from a book called "Step One: The Gospel and the Ghetto" by Harv Oostdyk. But mostly, just like his book, it is based upon many of the stories Jesus told in the Bible. The one this is most aligned with is the parable of the Samaritan found in Luke 10. 

In short, the Exceptional Samaritan (as I now call him) took no thought for the identity of the man he found, only for alleviating his pains. My desire is to do the same and I know others (homeless or "home-full") want to do the same as well. I want this program to reach anyone and everyone. Jesus did not force anyone to believe as He did and neither do I. I simply want to live as He lived and Love as He Loved because that changed the world. And if there’s anything the world needs now… It’s change for good!

So please let me know if you're interested in helping no matter where you are. Thank you. Create today. It's amazing 🤩. May your choices make it the best day every day. Peace...