DSquared Homes for the Homeless

TEMPE, AZ – It was a busy Saturday morning at Kiwanis Park in Tempe, Arizona. Food vendors were setting up for an event, families were celebrating baby showers and little kids were throwing bread to the growing flock of ducks in the pond.  

 

Under one of the ramadas sat JuanTe Dailey and her team of volunteers. They were here to make their regular drop-off of bread and water to the homeless community that called Kiwanis their home. They had been doing it every week for almost a year now.

 

“It’s just amazing what can be done if you just keep going,” JuanTe said.

 

Dailey started her non-profit DSquared Homes for the Homeless because of the little help that the mental health system provided to people that were caught in what she called the “gap.”

 

People that are stuck in the gap are ones that are not given any help from the State because they are considered high-functioning and able to work, Dailey explained.

 

People like her son, Donté.

 

“My son has schizophrenia and he’d done really well for the last couple of years and he had an emergency life event, and he ended up homeless,” JuanTe said.

 

Dailey tried to help her son find temporary shelter as he tried to get back on his feet. They applied for housing at a community center, but were turned down over $40. JuanTe offered to pay the amount to help her son, but was told by the community center that it was impossible because she was not the client.

 

“That was just ridiculous to me,” JuanTe said.

 

After this experience, JuanTe launched DSquared and has been trying to help the homeless community around the Valley. Her and her volunteers assemble bags that contain water, food and essentials, and pass them around at various homeless communities.

 

They are able to meet and talk with the people that they are trying to help. People like James Best, a homeless man who is living in Kiwanis Park.

 

“She’s [JuanTe] asked me if I ever need anything, shoes, clothes, hygiene, food, anything like that she’ll always do the best she can to get whatever it is that you need,” Best explained.

 

They also have started making sleeping mats that are made completely from old, plastic grocery bags. Her team takes the hundreds of grocery bags that have filled-up JuanTe’s house and turn them into “plarn,” or plastic-yarn. Other members then crochet the plarn into a large mat that can be placed over table tops at parks.  

 

“The mats were a good idea because they are thick enough where they are actually comfortable and then they can be cleaned,” JuanTe said.

 

The ultimate goal for JuanTe, though, is to create a housing model that homeless people can use temporarily until they are able to get back on their feet. Something that her son needed.

 

DSquared has grown and blossomed rapidly to 200 members. They now even have groups in Texas.

 

 “To me it’s a community,” JuanTe said. “This is our responsibility.”

 

JuanTe feels that her board of directors and team behind her are the reason for their success and growth. People that she is forever thankful for.

 

“They are a blessing to me,” JuanTe said with a smile. “They really are because they have the experience that I don’t have.”

 

It has been an experience that has taught her so much and has changed her perspective on the homeless community.

 

“And all they need is help,” JuanTe said. “I just decided to do it.”