As a native Ann Arborite, Damien Richardson has seen the best and worst of life in the city – sometimes on the same day.
For a time before moving into Avalon Housing’s Hickory Way apartments, Damien worked full-time as a server at an upscale eatery, and slept in a tent less than five minutes away from his place of work.
“It takes the strongest person maybe you’ve ever ran into in your life to do something like that,” he recalled. “And people think, oh, you’re just being hyperbolic. I’m not. Like, you have to understand the type of mental structure it takes to go and, for lack of a better word, dissemble at your work as a server and then just go to the woods by yourself. It’s tough.”
Damien admits that not all of his choices were perfect, in a life full of ups and downs – the untimely death of his mother when he was in grade school, stops at private schools and a full-ride football scholarship to Division I colleges, severe injuries and a battle with alcoholism. Through all of it, he usually had a job. And before moving into Hickory Way, he was working full time, and homeless full time.
“Ann Arbor’s a very tough place to fall behind in,” he said.
The sense of vulnerability, whether staying in a tent or at a shelter, was one of the worst parts of being without a home, Damien said.
“People stealing from you. Nothing’s safe. You’re not safe,” he said. “People say, look at you, you’re 6-4. But people have weapons, people are drunk, people have mental issues. It’s very scary.”
Damien credited staff at the Delonis Center for recognizing he was at a “breaking point” and helping him find a spot at Hickory Way.
“I got a voucher and they fought for me to get in here… The staff knew I was checked out, just done.”
“We had got hotel rooms because of COVID, and then we lost them. I was back out in the woods,” he remembered.
He recalled the first time he saw his apartment.
“I just went one day, and they said, this is yours. It was pretty emotional,” he said.
He said moving out of homelessness into a place that emphasizes community and support was significant for him, but not just because of his own situation.
“It’s important to me for different reasons. It’s important to me because I’m born and bred in Ann Arbor, so it’s important that these kinds of things work in my city, that we set examples for other communities. So yeah, it’s big,” he said.
Now instead of worrying about where to sleep at night, or what his co-workers’ reactions might be if they knew where he stayed after his shift, Damien can focus on things that affect his family’s future, like whether his son should major in Business or Engineering at the University of Michigan.
That room – physical and mental – to move beyond survival mode is a huge benefit of being at Hickory Way, he said: “Peace of mind…. the security of this place is paramount.”
Text and photo by Avalon Housing Communications Manager Dan Meisler, dmeisler@avalonhousing.org.