Don't Let the Fancy LinkedIn Profile Fool You. I was Once Homeless.

When I was a child, my family did something most families don’t do, at least not families carting around a 7-year-old and a 5-year-old.

We moved into a tent in the forest outside of Ellensburg, Washington.

I don’t remember most of that experience, but the one memory I do have is a good one. In my memory, my father is pan-frying fish he caught in the stream we were camping next to.

Other than the fish, I don’t remember much about our time in the forest.

But I do remember where we lived a year later.

In the summer of 1989, my parents moved my brother and me into an abandoned farmhouse in northern Utah. Built in 1904 and seemingly abandoned in 1905, that house was far scarier than sleeping outside ever was. It didn’t have running water and was infested with all kinds of vermin. And maybe even a few monsters.

At least that’s what it felt like.

To this day, I have no idea who owned that home or if they knew a little family of four was living there. I assume they didn’t.

Just a Ghost in This House

I left Utah in 2002 and moved back in 2021. One of the first things I did was try to find that home, to see if it was still standing.

That house still stands, in largely the same condition we left it.

That isn’t the case with all my childhood homes.

Growing up, our household was always combustible. There is a very intentional pun there. Back in the eighties—before we bounced around the West—my mother burned the home we owned to the ground and barely escaped a first-degree felony arson conviction.

As soon as I could leave, I was gone—even though it meant I had to live in my car.

As traumatic as these experiences were, I never thought of myself as having been “homeless.” Homeless people slept on the side of the street you didn’t walk on. They were old and dirty and, in one way or another, responsible for their own misfortune.

I was just unlucky and had to spend some time living in places other people don’t consider a home.

Sure, I had lived like “them.” But I wasn’t one of “them.”

That illusion shattered when I was 21 and got my first professional job.

My People

In 2002, I moved to Arizona and went to work for a program that provides transitional housing to homeless veterans. Part of my job required me to visit churches, shelters, and forest camps to let veterans know about our program.

The first homeless veteran I encountered was a man named Glenn. He was weathered and beaten, and after four in-country tours of Vietnam and decades on the streets, he was barely able to communicate.

It didn’t matter that he was older than my father. It didn’t matter that his life experiences and mine weren’t the same. When I walked up to him and offered him a Ziploc bag full of hygiene supplies and protein bars, I didn’t see a leathery Vietnam veteran.

I saw my brother and me.

As I handed him the bag, I felt my hand reach back in time and lift the two of us into a better life—if only for a moment.

It also didn’t matter that Glenn left our program after a few days. For years, I saw Glenn riding his bike on the side of rural Arizona roads. Having seen things other people wouldn’t understand and couldn’t relate to, all Glenn could think to do was put his head down and keep pedaling.

I had zero difficulty relating to that.

I knew I was among my people.

A Dream Job

I have never worked harder, before or since.

I have never loved a job more, before or since.

I learned how to raise money. I learned how to communicate a vision. I learned what it feels like to pour your heart into something. I learned what it feels like to use the talent God gave you for the benefit of others.

I loved that job.

Then I had to leave. Life happened, I had a family, and feeding and housing the needy had to come second to feeding and housing my own kids.

And I spent 20 years perpetually searching for a job that would make me feel the way that job made me feel. None of them did.

Money was a poor substitute for making a real difference. Generating likes on social media for the sake of doing it was an even poorer substitute than money.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago when I had the opportunity to join Switchpoint, the most innovative and unique organization serving the homeless in the country. We provide housing, shelter, food, and other services to people experiencing homelessness, including veterans, seniors, families, and children.

The economic crisis that has enveloped the middle and working class in our country is horrific.

This year, America saw an 18% increase in homelessness across the board and a 33% increase in the number of homeless children.

And that crisis isn’t just a symptom of the opioid epidemic.

Over 50% of unsheltered homeless individuals (people living on the street) are employed.

It’s a crisis we aren’t talking about, especially on platforms like LinkedIn.

The Hand That Turns the Key

I want to use my platform here to help people who experience homelessness and housing insecurity tell their own stories.

It reminds me of some lyrics from one of my favorite songs, “Jackson Cage” by Bruce Springsteen. The song describes the desire of the narrator to leave their environment and their economic circumstances for something better, to escape the trap they were born into:

Just waiting to see some sun

Never knowing if that day will ever come

Left alone standing out on the street

'Til you become the hand that turns the key

Down in Jackson Cage

The first time I helped someone get a roof over their head, I felt like I had, for a moment, become the hand that turned the key to someone else’s cage—and in doing so, turned the key to my own.

As strange as it might sound, it is an incredible feeling.

You can feel that feeling, too. You can become the hand that turns the key to someone else’s cage.

When you see the least among us, don’t look away.

Do what you can to help, even if that means “just” listening to or reading their story.

(In the coming months, we will launch a podcast that will accompany this newsletter. Both will feature stories directly from people who have or are currently experiencing homelessness.)

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for helping.

Please subscribe to this newsletter and share it with others.

And thank you for being part of my network.

Jack McKissen is a LinkedIn Top Voice and Director of Marketing and Business Development at Switchpoint.

Learn more about Switchpoint.

Support our local and national efforts to end homelessness by purchasing Switchpoint Coffee.

Learn more about homelessness nationally and in your community.

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