HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — Khaldun Rasheed spent a lot of his life down on his luck, even if he’s the first to admit it wasn’t all just bad luck.
“I’m gonna keep it real,” Rasheed said, speaking outside Harrisburg’s Bethesda Mission after learning he’ll move Tuesday into one of 15 new “tiny homes” at Veterans Grove in Harrisburg. “I first started running around when I was on Dauphin County parole.”
Homeless by choice, in other words, because if he didn’t have a permanent home, then the parole officers couldn’t find him.
After taking some steps forward but others back, he committed to a program at Bethesda Mission that worked for him.
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“I started working on the issues, especially the one about moving around so much and never having stable housing,” Rasheed said.
But a long-term home eluded him. So the news that Veterans Outreach of Central Pennsylvania approved him for a tiny home?
“I was in so much shock,” Rasheed said. “I didn’t let them see me cry when I left” the village — comprised of the 15 houses plus a community center, where the vets — men and women — eat and participate in other activities together.