Meet a member of our Staff:
Apologies to Jeffrey, his photo got lost in the hurry to publish.
Jeffrey Whitlock
(59) was born in Rochester and graduated from Jefferson High School. He has spent a most of his life working in construction and currently sub-contracts for contractors in the area. He is skilled in a number of re-modeling areas.
As a young man he was a Junior Counselor at The Charles Settlement House, and later at St. Joseph’s Villa where he realized that he had much to learn to assist young men who had lost their way. During this young adult phase of his life he attended Faith Temple Apostolic Church and made a deep commitment to be a follower of Jesus.
Jeffrey married in his twenties and has three grown sons and one grandson. He and his wife separated after a period marital discord and his sons, now adults, and grandson, live in Atlanta. He keeps in touch with them and is proud of them.
During this sad break up in his life he left being an active church member but is now wanting to return to church. All along he has felt deeply moved and committed to the teachings of Jesus and has tried to live by these values.
How did he get to REACH? Two years ago, he was one of the guests at Bridge Home. He was trying to get an application for Section 8 housing and met Andy Carey of McCollaborative. The problem was that his construction work was taking him from place to place and he had no place of permanent residence. He was for all practical purposes homeless. Andy encouraged him to get to REACH and helped with his Section 8 application. He has now lived in his own place for over two years, recently moving to a place that has better property management.
When asked what he thought of REACH, Jeffrey said it “is a beautiful program that reaches out to you and helps you to do what you need to do to become more responsible for yourself.” This year, he is a staff worker helping REACH continue to reach out to our homeless brothers and sisters.
