By Victoria Rosenblum, The Flip Side Communications
Dexter, a veteran homeless for three to four years, calls Victory Place home and now gives back to those in the position he once found himself.
“Working with the people that I work with here, people that we’re feeding just gives me such a good feeling,” said Dexter, who serves as a Victory Place cook. “At the end of the day I’m going hey, I made somebody’s life a little bit happier.”
Victory Place is home for about 145 veterans who once lived on the streets. The facility also provides amenities including employment services and various support groups.
Dexter also talked about his sobriety: “Right now I’m clean and happy.”
Shane, a program coordinator, explains why he believes in the cause: “At a minimum, people that have risked everything to give us the freedom that we enjoy every day deserve to live in a home.”
Victory Place is just one of several locations helping people with housing.
Darrel Christenson, VP of Community Integration at Arizona Bridge to Independent Living, also known as ABIL, told us why housing accommodations for people with disabilities is so important:
“People with disabilities are your friends, your neighbors, maybe your own family members,” said Darrel. “That housing is an important piece of integration into the community, into the American dream, into the American lifestyle of full participation and activity just like their non-disabled peers.”
According to the census, 900,000 people in Arizona have some type of disability.
The Flip Side Communications teamed up with the Arizona Department of Housing at the 2013 Arizona Housing Forum. We produced six videos that took on the different housing needs that face our community. These include the importance of housing for veterans, people who are deaf, people with disabilities, grandparent guardians of grandchildren and housing conveniently located near public transit. Our videos highlighted the successful efforts of Victory Place, ABIL and other organizations that are dedicated to satisfying the housing needs of people in our community. Interviews with Dexter and Darrel allowed the personal impact of these housing projects to shine.
Keith and I made sure everything ran smoothly at the Stand Up For Housing event, directing the show with the help of Talking Stick Resort technical staff. We knew we would be calling the shots, but we found out the day before that we’d also be pushing some buttons to control overhead lighting. Laugh as much as you want, but someone had to be across the room flicking the light switch and I accepted that challenge.
The Flip Side Communications created these videos for the Stand Up For Housing Forum so the audience could see firsthand what kind of projects the Arizona Housing Department is responsible for. We played each video after introductions of the topics and transformed the informative presentation of facts into a creative and innovative experience.
Here are two of our videos played at the forum:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/wdySA1GjrQw[/youtube] [youtube]http://youtu.be/STlMpzkDZvI[/youtube]