Waypoint housing specialist leads from experience

CEDAR RAPIDS — Every day at Waypoint, Lori Holman meets with clients who are in need. Through each of her conversations, Holman remembers where she came from.

Waypoint, located in downtown Cedar Rapids, offers services for women, children and families. The organization operates the Madge Phillips Center shelter for homeless women and their children — where Holman has worked as a case manager for the past three years — as well as a daytime resource program that provides personal and household supplies to those in need.

Waypoint also serves as a central point of contact for people in need of housing, offers advocacy for those seeking to regain permanent housing and operates a domestic-violence victim services program.

Each morning when Holman gets in to work, she checks in at the shelter to see how things went the night before. Client appointments usually begin at 9 a.m.

She may have only two or three appointments with those struggling to get housing scheduled, but she could see five or more people. Some have evictions on their records or evictions for which they owe money, she said. Others may have criminal records.

But Holman has a unique sense of empathy for those she serves.

'Those individuals that are marginalized, that are pushed out to the borders of the population, individuals experiencing homelessness, individuals of lower socioeconomic status, individuals with mental health concerns, I have been that single mom living on welfare,' she said. 'It's not a happy place to be, and there's so much judgment and so much disdain for that entire population.

'I wanted to really connect with people.'

Holman grew up in a poor family, she said. Her father was an alcoholic and was emotionally abusive when he was intoxicated, Holman said. In 10th grade, she dropped out of school, but later earned her GED.

'If I had just been able to go to school and learn and take the tests, I would have never left school,' she said. 'But I couldn't handle the brutality that I perceived being picked on, bullied, made fun of. You know, the fat kid, no money.'

She went from one unstable situation to another.

'Immediately when I left home, I went in to an abusive relationship, that I was in for about 10 years,' Holman said. 'During the process of that, I had become mentally unhealthy myself, just being around that sort of dysfunction and having this distorted view of what's normal.'

When she left that relationship, she didn't know how to be a parent to her two grown children, she said. In January 2000, Holman moved from her hometown in Missouri to Cedar Rapids. Her first job was at a Hy-Vee bakery.

'I had an epiphany one day and decided that I was going to go back to school,' she said. 'I honestly think that what gave me the edge on someone else who quit school in tenth grade, I've always been an avid reader from the time I was young.'

She enrolled at Kirkwood Community College and began taking online courses in liberal arts and completed her coursework in a year and a half. She has her bachelor's degree in psychology.

In December 2015, Holman earned her master's degree from Capella University in mental health counseling.

'For six years, I really didn't do anything but school and work,' Holman said. 'It was my whole focus ...

With the classes that I took, with the degree I have, you can't go into that program and come out of it the same person you were because of the self-examination that you have to do.

'You can't sit with someone and truly know how to join them until you know what baggage you carry so you can leave it outside.'

Today her two children live in Eldora and Marion respectively, and she has three grandchildren and one on the way. She also works as a crisis counselor with Foundation 2, a crisis prevention and intervention not-for-profit.

Samella Lee, 28, first met Holman a few years ago when Lee first entered the Madge Phillips shelter. Lee returned to the shelter in December and received guidance from Holman.

Holman helped her find a job, and she just signed a lease on an apartment.

'I think her life was a learning experience, and now her learning experience has helped us with our learning experiences,' Lee said. 'She sticks with you, no matter what situation, happy, sad, she just sticks with you.'

'To be able to go in where someone is really upset and really stressed and be able to really join them and meet them where we are, and be able to help de-escalate them a little bit …,

it's amazing,' Holman said.