Safiya Georges remembers vividly sitting in front of a local Wawa station. Her husband had recently left her and their kids and with the decrease in income, she had lost her apartment too.

She sat on the benches trying to figure out what to do, trying to figure out where to sleep, when a man in a hospital gown approached her and asked her if she was homeless too. Very quickly, the manager from inside the Wawa approached the man and asked him to leave the store’s property.

“I thought that was crazy since I was homeless too, but he didn’t ask me to leave,” Safiya says. “Too often, the way we look at homeless people and see them is through one lens, but some people just look different and are experiencing homelessness differently.”

After two years, Safiya is back on her feet and living in an house that Rescue Outreach Mission helped her obtain. As a veteran, she has more options than most. But, like many veterans experiencing homelessness, she didn’t know what was available and how to access them.

Safiya’s journey started in the Virgin Islands and ended in Orlando after being raised in the Bronx. She was around 25 years old the first time her family lost her home. At that point, they decided to move to Florida.

“I needed a change and I was so tired of the cold weather,” she says.

She has served in the U.S. Army as a medic but had to end her career early because of a medical issue. Moving to Orlando seemed to work out. She had a job with TSA. Her husband was working. They had a home, a car. “I had everything,” she says.

Then she lost her job, and her husband left. Her kids who were in middle school at the time, moved back to New York City to live with her parents for stability and safety while she worked through her dilemma.

After the experience at Wawa, she started trying to find help. A friend of hers who was also homeless suggested going to Rescue Outreach Mission. She stayed for five months.

“The first time at Rescue Outreach Mission was difficult,” she says. “Still, they provided the resources I needed to get back on my feet.”

That was in 2022, but like many people who experience homelessness, it takes time to work their way back to stability.

“The second time it was so much better, so much improvement in what they offered,” Safiya says. I was able to get my kids back and they were able to connect me with a social worker at the Veterans Administration who was able to secure me a Section 8 voucher for housing.”

Everyday, Rescue Outreach Mission works with veterans in this manner, helping connect them to resources they may not even know exist.

“Our veterans have done so much for our country and the VA truly works to help bring veterans off the street and out of experiencing homelessness,” says Chris Ham, executive director, Rescue Outreach Mission. “Unfortunately, too many veterans do not know them amount of resources available and they certainly don’t know how to access them.

“One of our key goals is to help connect our veterans with their benefits,” he says. “We provide them computers to connect with the VA and utilize the network of our providers to ensure they find a pathway to home quickly.”

Today, Safiya is on her path back. Her son wants to start Seminole State College to study criminal justice. Her daughter is in high school and dreams of being a model in New York City.

Safiya’s optimism and her giant smile shine through in her new house. She even wants to work at Rescue Outreach Mission.

“I’m more optimistic and hopeful because you don’t realize how having housing builds and starts a stable foundation,” she says. “Now, I really want to help other people because my experience through homelessness and seeing how people are treated really broke my heart.”

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