Providing hope at their time of need
Like many people who have struggled with addiction, Lyndsey’s road to recovery was not an easy one. Originally from a small town in North Carolina, she arrived in Baltimore in 2020 and had been using from a young age.
“My family life was very dysfunctional growing up, and my stepfather was very abusive. I ended up going to Central Booking for 19 months,” she says. Lyndsey tried a recovery center after jail, but she says,
“It just seemed like something was missing. I relapsed, and I ended up being homeless in Baltimore City for over a year. I was the lowest of the low. I ate out of trash cans. I slept outside most nights. I started thinking about going to treatment because I couldn’t take it anymore.”
She then heard about Helping Up Mission, a Baltimore nonprofit that helps those experiencing homelessness, poverty and addiction through a residential Spiritual Recovery Program.
One day, Lyndsey found herself in a really dangerous neighborhood surrounded by drugs. She was starving and began praying to God to help her. That’s when she spotted HUM’s outreach van giving out food.
“I said, ‘That’s a God moment right there.’ I could see the sun shining on this van and me just feeling like ... take me with you.”
She decided to get in the van and go straight to HUM for treatment.
Pamela R. Wilkerson, director of Helping Up Mission’s Center for Women & Children, recalls meeting Lyndsey.
“All Lyndsey wanted was a hot dog, so we got her a hot dog, drink and some chips, and then Lyndsey turned to me and said, ‘Now I’m ready to go to Helping Up Mission. I’ve seen you all out here a couple of times, and I wasn’t ready. This morning when I woke up, all of my clothes, everything I had sleeping on the street and my last bag of dope were all stolen.’ Her body was starting to go through withdrawals, so she knew she needed help right away. I got a driver, and
Lyndsey and I jumped into the van and came to HUM.”
Wilkerson adds that before taking Lyndsey to the detox unit, she showed her where she would live at HUM after she completed detox as a way to give her inspiration and hope that a better life lies ahead.
“They took me to the dorm, and I remember taking a shower, and that was the first shower I had had in a very long time,” Lyndsey says.
Wilkerson says that HUM’s Street Outreach Program is
critical as a way to meet people where they are and show them that there is hope for a better life. After she started at HUM, she realized that waiting for people to come for help was not the best strategy.
“I knew that I needed to fully engage with this community and potential clients, and so I talked to Pete Griffin, who is the director of intake and outreach. Pete is a native of Baltimore, and so I said, ‘Pete, where are the women who need us the most?’ Pete and I would jump into his car and drive around the city into some of the most severe drug areas, and he would show me the homeless encampments. We would go under bridges and different neighborhoods that are some of the most challenging areas in Baltimore City,” she says.
Wilkerson says that what started as a once-a-week informal outreach program now involves two or three days a week. She and her colleagues, partner organizations and volunteers hand out food, hygiene kits and Help & Hope cards with crisis contact information — but most critically, they start conversations with people to let them know that help is truly on the way. “We have a refurbished school bus that really reminds you of a Freedom Fighters bus, and now we are fighting for one’s freedom from drugs and alcohol, so the fight continues.”
Although the outreach program takes Wilkerson and others at HUM into dangerous neighborhoods, the amazing strides Lyndsey has taken shows it’s worth it.
Lyndsey says that she has gained about 50 pounds, and “since coming here, I feel the most at home I have felt in so long. And God has healed so much of my trauma already. We’re like a family.” She adds that the counseling at HUM has also allowed her to come to a place of forgiveness in regards to her abusive stepfather and family.
As she continues to work on her recovery, Lyndsey is also looking at ways to help others as a peer recovery specialist and eventually as a counselor, once she completes the program at HUM.
“To invest that much time and energy into a person, you have to believe in them, and I know they believe in me here,” she says.
For more information, visit HelpingUpMission.org.