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To start this year, we have a very special story to share. This is a unique situation, one that has some difficult aspects, but ultimately ends well.
Tacoby, one of our Street Outreach and Housing clients, has been working with Najwa, one of our Housing Navigators, to get a place in housing. He had been matched with a unit in the Salvation Army’s Hope Center, and he had received an invitation for an interview with the housing authority to get his Section 8 voucher.
Najwa was surprised when she was not invited to join Tacoby for his interview. She was even more surprised when the interviewer and Tacoby came back out of the office looking somber. Tacoby explained that he had been told he was ineligible for a housing voucher because he is a registered sex offender - but he vehemently denied this. “It’s my brother,” he said. “He uses my name.”
It’s the kind of excuse our Street Outreach and Housing team hears often, and Najwa might easily have left it there. But years of working with people has honed her instincts, and she had a feeling Tacoby was telling the truth. She looked up his name on the Megan’s Law website, and found that the search led to a photo that was not of Tacoby. Just as Tacoby had suggested, his name was listed as a known alias of a different man altogether.
Najwa met with Tacoby at the courthouse, and presented the facts convincingly enough that one of the public defenders was prepared to write an official letter stating there was no evidence that Tacoby had any sex-offense conviction. Najwa then arranged for a Live Scan test, and when the results came back confirming Tacoby’s identity, she was able to get his housing process back on track. Tacoby moved into his new apartment this morning! We are so glad that Najwa trusted her instincts and went the extra mile to clear her client’s name.
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