Homelessness can't be solved in a weekend, but one UF graduate hopes his project will open the doors to the solution.
On Sunday, Dirk Sampselle, director and founder of Citizens for Social Justice, and his staff will begin the Golden Door project, a student-run transitional housing and educational rehabilitation program for homeless people.
The trial run will take place at Sunrise Villas apartments, 3010 S.W. 23rd Terrace.
Sampselle said he realized a few forums and awareness events a year is not enough to solve the problem of homelessness in Gainesville. So he created an organization focused on utilizing students' abilities to solve the problems, CSJ, which celebrated its first anniversary in January.
Sampselle said he is working with St. Francis House, which owns the Sunrise apartment complex, to conduct the trial run with eight residents already living there.
Currently, residents have a case manager who keeps them on the plan they set up, which includes employment, rent, loss of income and educational needs, said Kent Vann, executive director of St. Francis House.
The case manager, who only meets once a month or when needed, works with several residents at a time, but Sampselle said he wants the opposite by having several caseworkers for each person. Each adviser will assist in one of seven fields: goal discovery, arts mentoring, financial literacy, health and nutrition, communication skills, rights literacy or pet therapy.
The program will provide mental and physical health care, job placement and vocational training, adult education and GED opportunities and a broad spectrum of educational mentoring and support services, according to its Web site.
Sampselle plans to work out the problems of the trial version by the summer and revamp the program by fall to implement the full eight-month program.
Vann said he did not have any hesitation about working with the student-run organization.
He said St. Francis currently has a partnership with UF for volunteering and has found students have always been loyal to fulfill their tasks.
Vann said he would like for the Golden Door project "to maintain self-sufficiency and not fall back into the gaps" and for CSJ to someday have its own facility.
