Rob's Story
Rob is an 18-year-old boy who spent the last three years as a homeless youth. His mother and stepfather were arrested in 2003 on charges of drug sales and possession, and Rob was sent to North Carolina to live with his father. It wasn’t long before his father was arrested for child abuse. Rob wanted to come back to Okaloosa County, which he associated with friends and some stability; the state of North Carolina wanted to put him in foster care. Since Rob’s grandmother lived in the Panhandle, North Carolina officials agreed to let him stay with her if she agreed to take him. Although Rob and his grandmother didn’t get along, Rob asked her to write a letter saying that she would let him move in with her. Rob promised that in return, he would hop off the bus in Fort Walton Beach and never so much as give her a call. She agreed, wrote the letter, and Rob came back.

Rob did have friends, and he stayed with first one, then another. If he couldn’t find a friend’s sofa to serve as a bed for the night, he rested on a park bench or under a bush. He worked part-time at a grocery store, and eventually saved enough to buy a wrecker of a car. From that point he rotated from friend to car to friend. Most of his occasional hosts told him he could bunk down for more than a week or two, but he hated to be a burden. He continued his nomadic rounds, which revolved around the odd hours dictated by his job. Those of us who let him use our houses learned not to wander around the house without first checking out the sofas and futons, as one never knew when Rob’s odd sense of schedule told him ours was the next stop on the list. 

But Rob didn’t only work and wander. He studied. Rob is extremely bright, and he wanted more for himself than the life his parents had offered. He intended to use his intellect to pull him out of his life on the streets, and he made sure it happened. Other young men wanted video games and neat phones for Christmas. He wanted flashlights, batteries and book lights so he could study on the nights he spent in his car.

Rob graduated in the top ten of his high school class, having excelled in Advanced Placement classes and earning 30 college credits. He received the most number of scholarships of any member of the senior class. He will probably work some during school, but he won’t have to. He’s a freshman this year, and studying to earn a 4.0 in premed. He’s going to make it.

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Okaloosa Walton Homeless Continuum Care / Opportunity, Inc.
941-L Central Avenue  |  Fort Walton Beach, FL 32547
 Phone: (850) 226-7694  |  info@okaloosawaltonhomeless.org

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