The proclamation will ensure the support for homeless and the services that are offered to them
MARQUETTE -- Katrina Reynolds's backpack is light. She doesn't have much else to fill it with but hope. She is one of many who walk the streets of Marquette with no place to call home.
"Homeless are here in Marquette," Reynolds said.
"We're walking the streets, we're serving burgers, we're building the houses, we're working, we're trying to live, we're trying to fit in, but we don't."
Katrina said being homeless is a sign of shame and weakness to most people. However, the most humiliating thing is holding a sign day to day to try to find work.
She also carries something else - a letter she wrote asking the City Commission to make November Homeless Awareness Month in Marquette.
Her efforts paid off. At Monday's meeting, the commissioners will sign Katrina's very own proclamation...ensuing support for all homeless trying to make a difference in their lives.
"Homelessness is situational, and there are lots of reasons why people become homeless," Robin Roy, program coordinator at Room at the Inn, said. "Very few people choose that for themselves."
Homelessness is a growing problem in Marquette with limited resources from the community.
"There is a shrinking of resources for them to transition into, so we're having less and less tools in which we can respond to homelessness," Roy said.
With purple ribbons on their hearts, they say being invisible is the hardest part.
"You walk out the door, and all of a sudden you feel shame; I'm homeless, I don't want people to know," Reynolds said.
A struggle that isn't planned: "There are so many people that are just one paycheck away from being homeless that it can happen to anybody, and then you're going to be here with me," Reynolds said.
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