Homeless in Haywood: the journey continues

It was a journey I thought would last three days but has already lasted a year, with no signs of stopping.

It was 50 miles in 60 hours, all on foot. It was two sleeps outside, and one in the shelter where I ate my Thanksgiving dinner. 

Peer specialists go inside jail to assist inmates

Being incarcerated and not knowing what your future may hold is a terrifying experience, but being released from jail and having no resources to get back on your feet can be even scarier.

Haywood Pathways on a roll

Haywood County’s only homeless shelter — and one of the very few in North Carolina west of Asheville — continues to advance its mission of transforming the most vulnerable among us by filling in some of the potholes on their road to recovery. 

Homeless in Haywood for the holidays

I don’t really want to go into the domestic circumstances that led up to it, but even though I had no car, no money, no work and now, nowhere to live, I walked down our darkened driveway in the middle of the cold starry night with little more than the clothes on my back.

Worse than the dearth of resources, I had no social support structure, and with no real knowledge of the resources available to someone in a short-term housing crisis, there I was, standing in a Maggie Valley gas station mere moments into Thanksgiving Day, in a short-term housing crisis.

Haywood Pathways Center expansion to help homeless

The causes of homelessness — and homelessness in Haywood County — are varied and numerous, but according to the Haywood Pathways Center more must be done locally to address the problem regardless of source.

For the better: Haywood Pathways resident reflects on what’s behind and what he hopes is ahead

fr forbetterCalvin Mann can’t make it far across the campus of Haywood Pathways Center without bumping into a friend.

Getting the Pathways Center off the ground

fr pathwaysParticipation at the Haywood Pathways Center in Waynesville has been holding pretty steady ever since it opened in late 2014, with about 25 people living on campus, 80 percent of them male.

From prison to platter: Haywood Pathways Center kitchen serves up first meals in Hazelwood

fr pathwaysDinnertime came a little late at Haywood Pathways Center Sunday night (Jan. 4), but for all the right reasons. It was the inaugural night for The Open Door’s Hazelwood kitchen, the final piece in turning the dream behind the Pathways Center into reality. 

“It might be a few minutes before we get to the pork chops,” said Jeremy Parton, Haywood Pathways’ newly hired kitchen and shelter director. “They might be a little cold, but that’s going to be OK, because there’s not going to be another night like this.”

Haywood Pathways welcomes first guests, continues renovation

fr pathwaysAt T-minus three days until the scheduled opening day for Haywood Pathways Center, Nick Honerkamp still wasn’t sure how to answer the big question: will the shelter open?

“That is the question of the week,” said Honerkamp, one of the leaders of the effort, Wednesday (Nov. 12) morning.

A conversation with Ty Pennington

fr penningtonTy Pennington is a celebrity carpenter best known for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” a show that involved lightning-quick remodels of less-than-stellar homes for families with compelling stories about why they needed a better living space. After taking the grand prize in a nationwide voting contest sponsored by home loan company Guaranteed Rate, Haywood Pathways Center won Pennington’s help for a day to help make their vision of a prison turned to a center for healing a reality. 

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