Homeless Heroes
homeless and sleeping in the rain,” Cooper smiles “I ended up sleeping in a bed. So what’s next chapter of Cooper’s life look like? Back to music it is. In addition to Open Mic nights, the gifted musician looks to be booking at venues all over the area. But, there is something different. The passion lights up in his eyes as he says, “I just want to live simply…I just
want to give back. I feel more successful now that I did when I was making lots of money. And, I feel more together. Money is not important to me anymore…..only what it can do.” Mitch pauses and then in a very satisfied tone finishes, “Everything’s good man…. everything’s good.” Things that used to be important to Mitch aren’t. Life’s radically different. The stress
STAY INFORMED, HELP THE NEEDY, GET INVOLVED.
www.speakup.com
that was is nowhere to be found. Sitting in front of me was a man who through hell and back has found his peace and his place. His words reinforce his contentment. “I have an apartment, a jam box, a TV, a guitar, some acrylic paints and a pad….I’m set. I have a great girlfriend, I’m set.” How does Mitch want to be remembered? He muses, “As a guy that’s in a position to give back to people he doesn’t know. I would like a stranger to become my friend.” With humility he concludes, “I want to be remembered as a guy that set up a place that made Charlotte 0% homeless. That’s my goal with my music. And hopefully people, when they come to see me, they know they’re supporting the homeless more than my back pocket.” Mitch you’ve turned another stranger into and friend and have helped me to continue redefining what it means to have a good day... That Saturday was a good day…..a very good day.
“You mean to tell me, you do all this good in the day and you lock them out to the bad at night? Does that make any sense to you?”
Needing Moore
How the answer to one question became the answer for Charlotte’s chronically homeless. “You mean to tell me, you do all this good in the day and you lock them out to the bad at night? Does that make any sense to you?” Kathy Izard, Urban Ministry Center volunteer and former board member, vividly remembers the day Denver Moore spoke these words. It was a question she had never
asked herself in 15 years of volunteering and it was the one that would, subsequently, help create a housing project never before seen in the Queen City. This January, eighty-five of Charlotte’s chronically homeless will call Moore Place home. A true collaboration of community, Moore Place is, at its core,
the answer to one very simple question. One Thursday morning over coffee, I met with Kathy Izard to talk about the conversation that changed her life.”Meeting Denver Moore changed my path in ways I never saw coming” says Izard. It started with a book.
SPEAK UP MAGAZINE
27
Words by: Keia Mastrianni Pictures by: Dustin Manning & Norman Lavata
It was up to $600 a day.” “It was ridiculous…it was crazy.” Fast forwarding through this tumultuous life we move in and around the blur of successes and challenges in the music business, even other not so fruitful ventures outside of that brutal industry, and we end up in 2005. Mitch is sharing an apartment in Uptown. He has an argument with his roommate. Locks are changed, a restraining order is placed on him and he has nowhere to go. “Like overnight I became homeless. I had no money. My drug habit was out of control. I was sick…it was horrible.” H i s friend Steve Davis saved his life and got him checked into a Methadone clinic. He got clean, but lost his address and everything else he had. Mitch spent the next four years sleeping in shelters, the occasional friend’s house and bouncing in and out of mental hospitals and clinics. Finally he caught a break. This homeless musician got accepted into a program that gave him a place to live and get his live started again. “After 4 years of being
Grassroots Charlotte