Four stories of faith, restoration and lives transformed
Hope can be difficult to see in the middle of a crisis. A home is suddenly gone. Addiction has taken control. Someone leaves prison after more than a decade and has no idea how to begin again. A family arrives in a new city and spends their first nights sleeping in a car. In those moments, imagining a different future can feel almost impossible.
Every day at The Salvation Army Nashville Area Command, staff meet individuals and families in circumstances like these. Motivated by the love of God, they help address immediate needs while working with each person on what comes next. That may mean housing, childcare, transportation, recovery support or simply having someone listen long enough to understand the situation.
Kasey, Shauntelle, Simone and Alexandria came to The Salvation Army for different reasons and needed different kinds of help. Their stories show what can happen when practical support is paired with people willing to walk alongside someone through a difficult season.
Kasey: Returning to the Streets With Hope
After spending 11 years in prison, Kasey entered a world he no longer knew how to navigate. He was battling addiction and eventually experienced homelessness. Even ordinary responsibilities could feel overwhelming because he did not always know what resources existed or what options were available. Looking back, he describes that season with one word: hopeless. “I know I could do better,” he remembers, “I just didn’t know how.”
When Kasey connected with The Salvation Army, staff helped him get into a room and find clothing, but his needs went beyond a place to stay. After more than a decade incarcerated, he needed help navigating the world outside prison. Staff assisted with transportation, medical and dental appointments, mental health care and other parts of reentry. “No matter what the problem was, they would work towards a solution with me,” he says.
Kasey also began strengthening his relationship with God. For him, the Christian foundation of The Salvation Army was an important part of his experience. “It’s a church and it’s built on Christian morals,” he says. “I believe that we have to get out here and love on people. We have to bring the word of Jesus to people.”
That conviction eventually led him back to the same streets where he had once experienced homelessness. Kasey started a street ministry in Nashville called “I Am,” where he provides food, shares his testimony, prays with people and talks about Jesus. Many on the street still recognize him. They knew him when he was struggling, which gives him a unique opportunity to tell them what God has done in his life.
Kasey says The Salvation Army showed him he could have a life outside of the streets, work on himself and strengthen his relationship with God. “If it wasn’t for The Salvation Army,” he says, “I’d be either homeless or dead.” Today, he returns to those same streets with something different to offer: hope.
Shauntelle: When Everything Changes at Once
For Shauntelle and her children, life changed when a major tornado destroyed their home. Suddenly displaced, the family spent years moving between motels while bills accumulated. Shauntelle was still trying to recover from everything that had happened, and childcare was difficult to find. “There were a lot of things spinning in my head on what to do next, where to go, where to ask help,” she remembers.
Eventually, Shauntelle and her children entered an emergency shelter. A caseworker there asked whether she had heard about The Salvation Army. She had not, but hearing what help was available brought a sense of relief. “It was like fresh air,” she says. “Maybe that’s one step closer to what I need in life.”
When Shauntelle arrived at The Salvation Army’s Center of Hope, staff listened to what had happened to her family and helped her sort through the obstacles keeping them from stability. That included help with unpaid bills and childcare, along with workshops, resources and case management. “I’m thankful for The Salvation Army for actually listening to my circumstances,” she says, and for “giving me the opportunity to get back on my feet.”
Shauntelle kept moving forward. She completed training courses through Goodwill of Middle Tennessee, established herself as a cabinet specialist in the construction field and found a safe home for her children. Her experience is also a reminder that homelessness can follow a sudden crisis. The tornado changed the direction of her life, but with support and her own determination, Shauntelle was able to build stability again.
Simone: “I Thank God Every Day”
Simone knew something had to change. Addiction to crack cocaine and fentanyl had taken control of her life. She experienced homelessness, lived for a time in a broken-down trailer without water or electricity and turned to prostitution to get drugs. Eventually she reached a point where she thought, “I can’t live like this anymore. I can do better than this.”
Later, while in jail, Simone began praying and asked God to help her not return to the life she had been living. “I literally felt the hand of God reach down and just slowly take this addiction out of me,” she says. “I felt the desire leaving me to want to get high anymore.”
After leaving jail, Simone began treatment through a methadone clinic, but she still needed a stable environment where she could focus on recovery. She began contacting domestic violence shelters and eventually received a call that she had been accepted into a program at The Salvation Army. “I felt so welcomed, so accepted, so loved,” she remembers of her first day. “I felt like I just fit right in.”
Since then, Simone has remained sober, attends therapy weekly and has been able to address her mental health needs. She also points to the spiritual support she found there. “They have actually church services here, which is great for me because my faith plays a big part in my recovery,” she says.
That faith remains part of her daily life. “When I go out and whenever I get back to The Salvation Army and I go in my room, I get on my knees and I thank God for letting me have this place to come back to,” she says. “I thank God every day for The Salvation Army.”
Simone is also thinking about what she might do with her experience. She hopes to work with people experiencing addiction and women who have survived human trafficking. “I want to be a voice for the voiceless people that don’t have the strength to fight for themselves,” she says. “I believe that God works everything out in my life for a reason.”
Alexandria: A Place to Call Home
Alexandria, her fiancé and their three children moved from Georgia to Nashville with little time to plan. Her fiancé had found work here, but when the family arrived, they had nowhere to live. For a week or two, they slept in their car.
An online search eventually led them to The Salvation Army. Staff helped move the family from their car into a hotel for several weeks and provided assistance with gas and food while they worked toward something more permanent. Eventually, the family found a new home.
For Alexandria, the moment she remembers most is watching her children see it for the first time. “The look on my kids’ faces” was the best part, she says. After sleeping in a car and then a hotel, the children ran into the house to discover their own rooms. They finally had a safe place their family could call home.
The support did not stop when they moved. “They walked through with us,” Alexandria says. “We weren’t just thrown into it.” Staff connected the family with furniture and resources to put food in their refrigerator, continued checking on them and welcomed the children back for events.
Today, Alexandria and her fiancé have jobs, their children have a home, and the family has the stability they were searching for when they left Georgia. “We wouldn’t be here, still here today, without them,” Alexandria says. “They got us on our feet.” Then she sums up life now in just a few words: “We’re just happy.”
When Hope Finds You
The needs that Kasey, Shauntelle, Simone and Alexandria brought to The Salvation Army were not the same, and neither was the help each person needed. For one, the next step included learning how to navigate life after prison. For another, it meant rebuilding after a tornado. Simone needed a stable place to continue recovery, while Alexandria’s family needed a path from sleeping in their car to having a home of their own. That individual approach reflects something central to The Salvation Army’s work: meeting human needs in Jesus’ name means seeing the person, not only the immediate crisis. Scripture repeatedly shows Jesus meeting people where they were, listening, responding to their needs and inviting them into something more. That example continues to shape how The Salvation Army serves today.
For Kasey, the result has included returning to the streets to share his faith with people who knew him when his own life looked very different. Shauntelle has built a career and a safe home for her children. Simone is sober and hopes her experience can one day help other women. Alexandria gets to watch her children grow up in a home they can call their own.
Their stories are different, but each includes people willing to meet them where they were and walk with them toward what came next. For The Salvation Army, that is what practical help offered in relationship can look like, grounded in the belief that today’s circumstances do not have to determine tomorrow.
—Misty Ratcliff, Development and Communications Relations Manager, Kentucky and Tennessee Divison,
The Salvation Army, www.salvationarmynashville.org
