Once-homeless teen opens door

With help from Spirit, she's pursuing her GED, moving ahead

By Ann Imse
Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

"My mom left my life when I was 11," said Lakia Hughes, now 19. "From 11 to 16, she was rarely there."

"Joy of Giving" is a Denver Rocky Mountain News month-long campaign to make the holiday season a warm and joyful time for everyone. To donate to Spirit and its parent, Human Services Inc., mail checks to 6795 E. Tennessee Ave., Denver, CO 80224. Information about obtaining help or donating time, food, or household goods: (303) 321-6363; Web site: www.humanservicesinc.org

Left to fend for herself for those five years by a drug-addicted mother and absent father, Hughes said she slept on the couches and floors of friends just 17 and 18 themselves. "I was having fun. I wasn't in school," she recounts.

That was the childhood that brought Hughes to the doors of Spirit, a program that helps homeless people get started on a normal life by helping them pay rent, furnish an apartment, buy food, finish school and find jobs. Spirit is a branch of Human Services Inc., which also runs the Florence Crittenton program for teen mothers and provides small loans to families in crisis.

Spirit is able to help about 80 to 85 of the 500 families a year that come to it for emergency housing, on a first-come, first-served basis, said director Helen Onyeali. Spirit also tries to place the overflow into other programs, and to provide emergency assistance with food, clothing and sometimes transportation to relatives out of state who can help.

Hughes' mother said her 11-year-old daughter left home voluntarily to live with her then-16-year-old sister. The mother said she let her apartment go because she was living with a boyfriend and the kids weren't there anyway.

Within a year, the older sister became a mother herself at 17, and responsibility for the baby came first, Hughes said.

She had a brother, too. He found a home with his pastor, she said. But the minister had other boys as well and no place for a girl, she recounts.

In 1996, Hughes moved to Little Rock, Ark., to live with the father she'd rarely seen since she was 4. That didn't last long.

"One morning, he woke me up, and had packed my bags, and put me on the bus back to Colorado with no money," Hughes said. Her father could not be reached for comment.

Then, she moved back in with her now-sober mother.

"She treated me like I was 10. But she wanted me to work and split the bills like I was 25," Hughes said. Her mother said, "I encouraged her to take responsibility."

At 18, Hughes said, her mother kicked her out. Then the teen heard that Spirit might help her set up in her own apartment and get her life in order.

"They bought all my furniture, dishes, towels, even toothpaste — everything you need for a household," Hughes recounts with awe. "I didn't believe it. I was in shock for about two months."

Sprit paid the deposit on her apartment, promised to subsidize her rent for a year, and provides her with $150 worth of free food each month, she said. It taught her to budget. It helped her into free GED tutoring at a program called Empowerment.

On her own, she found part-time work at a call center, fielding customer complaints for a major department store. She's studying computer graphics on the Internet.

"I love to draw. I like being creative, expressing the way I feel," she said. "I thought maybe I'll become a movie director, write screenplays. There's a lot of stuff I want to do in the entertainment field."

But first, she's been inspired to help other kids like herself. She's working on a plan to start a recreation-education center, staffed by volunteers helping kids as mentors, tutors, financial advisers and job counselors. One of the key tasks, in Hughes' opinion, is to provide sex education to street kids who missed out on information because they weren't in school.

"There's a lot of things people don't know" when it comes to sex, she said. "There's nobody out there you can go to on a personal level."

Soon, Hughes will be coming to the end of her year of housing subsidy and faces a jump in rent from the $110 she can afford on a part-time salary to the $595 that a small, simple apartment really costs in the metro area.

"I can't imagine paying $595," she said. "It's going to slow me down a whole lot."

But officials at Spirit say they'll wean her gently. "We do a budget every month," said Onyeali, so the teen can see how much she'll need to earn.

Some program graduates find roommates. And since Hughes is just weeks from being ready to pass her GED exam, she can look to grant programs to start classes at Metropolitan State College, Onyeali said.

Spirit will continue to offer her help with food, transportation and counseling as needed, to be sure that she makes it.

December 25, 2000