Points of Light
Meet Sara Varnado, one of Roof Above’s QT Street Outreach Team members. Sara says “It’s great to be able to hear people’s stories — to hear where they’re coming from, to hear about their lives.”
Sara has been working on the seven-member QT Street Outreach Team for over a year. She has more than a decade of experience in homeless services. A day in the life of an outreach team member can look like visiting ten different people, or working with one individual to complete a necessary step for housing, like obtaining an ID.
Sara finds caring for and helping others is her calling and a theme in her daily work. On the QT team, Sara cares for neighbors experiencing unsheltered homelessness by building rapport and relationships, when possible, and by being present in the lives of others. Many days are hard. Sara shares that “the biggest thing people are looking for is housing” and it’s challenging to tell neighbors that there isn’t housing immediately available. Despite difficulties, Sara “holds onto little points of light” like someone’s SNAP card arriving in the mail, which is a debit card connected to government food benefits.
Most important to Sara is that the community knows that “people are people,” and that those experiencing unsheltered homelessness “are just like everybody else, except they’re sleeping outside.”
Sara shared one thing that inspires her to keep going. “Just recently I’ve gotten a few people into housing, but they still reach out to me because I’m the one that they know and trust.”
Deidra is one person who worked with Sara on her path to housing at Forest Point Place, Roof Above’s permanent supportive housing community for people aged 55 and older. Deidra says about Sara: “I just look at her as a little beacon of light.”