02/04/2026
The other face of homelessness is not always what people imagine.
When we talk about being unhoused, stereotypes often come first. Substance use, mental health struggles, bad choices. While some of our guests do face those challenges, every single person has their own story and their own circumstances. Far too often, the elderly are forgotten entirely.
Meet Granny. Not a single soul at The Third Place has not met her. She is tiny, mighty, and full of sass, but she is also deeply kind.
Granny did not always live this way. When you ask her the last time she was housed, she will tell you plainly that she had an apartment. Out of the goodness of her heart, she let someone stay with her. That person brought his son, incidents followed, and Granny was evicted. From there, she stayed at a local shelter until her time ran out. When it did, she found herself back on the streets.
The first time Granny came to The Third Place, she did not come asking for much. She came asking to help. She needs to keep busy. Her first night out in the cold, she stayed in an abandoned building with new friends and no heat, just trying to survive. The next morning, she came in and told us how grateful she was that she knew we would be open. That she would have a warm place to sit, a cup of coffee, and somewhere safe to be during the day.
Granny became a regular. She made dozens of friends. She found a pair of overalls in our donation center that she proudly calls her monkey suit. She laughs easily, checks on others, and reminds us all what resilience looks like.
She is currently working toward securing an apartment, but she wants to stay close to the community she has built here and to the friends who helped her survive when she had nowhere else to go.
Granny’s story is just one of many. Homelessness does not look one way. It does not have one cause. And it does not erase someone’s dignity, kindness, or worth.
This is just another face of homelessness, and it deserves to be seen.
