Rebel With a Cause

The following article is featured in the winter 2017 edition of News From HOME, our quarterly print newsletter.  You can read the whole newsletter online here.  If you want to subscribe, click here.

Michael Koziski lives at our Connelly House residence.

This year I will celebrate my 20^th anniversary of being in Project HOME, so it is a good occasion to recount my experience here. I was homeless for almost a year in 1996.  I stayed under a bridge right across from where they were building the Wells Fargo Center in South Philly.  One day, a construction worker came over to talk to me, and after a while he brought me over to his trailer for coffee and snacks.  We talked for a little bit, and then I went back under the bridge. 

The next day, the cops showed up and took me to the hospital.  It must have been the construction worker who called, because no one else knew I was there.   Looking back, I believe that construction worker saved my life:  When I got to the hospital they learned that I had an infection in my feet up to my ankles and I would have died soon.

I was in the hospital for several months, both at Jefferson and in a rehab center in West Chester, and I kept getting visits from Project HOME staff.   They took me on a tour of 1515 Fairmount Avenue and invited me to come live at Project HOME.  Even though there were no rooms open, they wanted me to come live at Project HOME so badly that they set me up in a closet at Kairos House until a room opened up. 

And I made the most of it.  Kairos House was such a great fit for me, because I got to interact with a lot of staff and other residents.   When I first came to Project HOME, I was 21.  But I consider myself born and raised here.  I came in as a young punk; a loner with a chip on my shoulder.  But there are so many people who helped me change and grow up; Greg Jordan, Monica Parchesky, and Jeannine Lisitski (former staff members), just to name few.  Those three individuals especially made the greatest impact on my life.

In the past 20 years at Project HOME I grew up a lot.  I learned to keep my anger in check, and graduated from Wellness Management classes several times.  I got involved in a lot of volunteer activities, including starting Movie Nights, working in the Free Library, starting a Bible study, participating in the Speakers Bureau, serving on the residents council, and participating on a board that worked to open Connelly House where I now live.  I even wrote my autobiography.

I used to be a rebel without a cause.  Now I’m a rebel with a cause.  I have great appreciation and gratitude for Project HOME.  If it wasn’t for Project HOME, I wouldn’t be me, and I am who I am because of Project HOME. I owe a great debt of gratitude.