Success Stories

Gwyddion Storm 

Gwyddion Storm has been homeless for 28 years.  After being kicked out of his sister's house at 18, he now has his own apartment for the first time and he calls it “awesome.”

​In January 2015, when Gwyddion was still experiencing homelessness, he was surveyed during the Washtenaw County Point-In-Time Count and placed on a priority list for housing, as part of the community’s Zero:2016 initiative. A few months later, he learned, from an outreach worker at Washtenaw County Project Outreach Team (PORT), there was an apartment available for him. He went straight to Avalon Housing to sign paperwork for the apartment he occupied just two weeks later.

Gwyddion notes that there is a stigma against individuals experiencing homelessness, one that still affects him as he begins his jewelry business.

“It seems to me that the widespread public opinion or at least most the people I deal with on a daily basis believe that if you're homeless it's your own damn fault, you know. You're lazy, you're a drug addict, something. Even sitting there selling jewelry there' s people that walk by that refuse to even look at me, refuse to even speak to me because they perceive me as being homeless and automatically in their heads go "it's another beggar" and just walk on by without even looking to see what I'm doing. ”

For Gwyddion, getting the apartment is both freedom from others expectation, and an opportunity to start his own business.  

“You know, all the couch surfing and everything I've done, I've always had to fit into somebody else's idea of what I should be doing and keep them happy in order to keep my housing. It's awesome having my own place….I'd spent 20 years getting fired from jobs and 3 years looking for a job and I decided to make my own job so that's what happened there.” 

Gwyddion makes jewelry now at home, and sells it as a permitted street vendor in Ann Arbor.  This is an opportunity he has been waiting years for; having an address enabled him to acquire a permit needed for his business.  Employment and housing together provide Gwyddion long-term housing stability.  He receives employment, housing, and supportive services from Avalon Housing.

-Interview conducted by Aubrey Patiño, Director of Clinical Services for Avalon Housing. 

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