JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Navy veteran who went from making six figures to being homeless for nine years finally has a new home thanks to a Jacksonville nonprofit.
RELATED: City teams up with local nonprofit to create affordable housing program
Patriot Services Group is working to try and solve the affordable housing crisis one renovation at a time.
The nonprofit plans to create 17 safe, clean, and affordable homes in the historic Springfield neighborhood. It already started the restoration process at the 100-year-old Lauderdale Apartment Buildings.
But just across the Mathews Bridge at Patriot Plaza in Arlington sits the nonprofit’s first Jacksonville property.
Derrick Wilkes said he went from the Navy to a banking executive making over $100,000, to divorced and homeless for nine years with a brief prison stint in between.
He’s said he’s still getting used to his new home.
“Oh man, Friday, when I got the keys and...I was sitting here, and I kept looking around and, you know I sat there for a little, and I just couldn’t believe it,” Wilkes said.
Wilkes said he wouldn’t be in his home without the help of Patriot Services Group. He contacted them on Wednesday and got his keys by Friday.
“This is something I never thought would happen to me,” Wilkes said. “I had a 5,000 square foot house at the intercoastal with the boat dock, and I was making six figures and just to lose all that.”
Paul Anderson, the Executive Director of Patriot Services Group said a lot of empathy goes into the work they do.
“We hear a Derrick story, I will say, hundreds of times a year. I was stable. One bad thing happened to me in my life and led me down this path, and trying to get out of it is hard,” Anderson said. “And if you‘re homeless, it‘s almost impossible. So what we do is we provide the landing pad, and even if this is your temporary home or your forever home, we provide the resources that they need or will link them to the resources.”
But there’s more work to be done.
The nonprofit’s newest $2.8 million project, Patriot Spring on Market, will bring nearly 20 more affordable homes to the community by 2025.
It will operate similarly to where Wilkes lives in Patriot Plaza.
You don‘t have to be a U.S. veteran to apply. You just have to make 30% of the area’s median income to be approved.
“We‘ve gone all the way to the level of asbestos removal...but we‘re starting construction this week, and we are proud to launch this program that we’re going to be having here,” Anderson said.
He said in a lot of cases, their properties are some of the last affordable housing options available to people at risk of homelessness.
“It‘s providing housing to people that may not qualify for a normal landlord,” Anderson said. “They may have a charge from seven years ago, but yet it’s showing on their record they’ve been a good member of the community, we look past that.”
Wilkes said Patriot Services Group went the extra mile.