Jamé Scott can recall staying up until 2 a.m. with a distraught woman whose child had to be taken by Child Protective Services. As the transitional housing manager for Grapevine Relief and Community Exchange (GRACE), a local nonprofit with a mission to help the less fortunate by guiding them to a life of self-sufficiency, Jamé is on call 24/7. That night was no different.
It had come to her attention that a woman going through GRACE’s transitional housing program was addicted to a controlled substance. After calling CPS, Jamé stayed to comfort the woman and helped clean her apartment so that she could rest. The next day, Jamé and another GRACE worker gave her a ride to a treatment facility. These kinds of tasks weigh heavy on Jamé, who wants so badly to see people make it through GRACE’s program and rebuild lives for themselves. Even then, the woman’s story wasn’t over.
“Months later, she called me to say thank you,” Jamé says. “She said 'I hated you when it happened, but I've been clean and sober for six months and I'm working on getting my son back.' That was the most rewarding thing. For someone to call and say thank you for being there in one of the most devastating moments... it's worth it.”
It’s hard work, but for Jamé, social work is her life’s calling.
“I grew up in foster care in San Francisco,” she says. “I knew at a young age that I wanted to defeat the odds and break the cycle. I learned that the people I felt were most impactful and influential were those who had similar experiences, and didn't just learn things from a book or in an office, and I thought I could do the same thing.”
Strongest Soldier
Before entering the foster care system, Jamé was homeless. She remembers kids at school making fun of her for smelling bad because she didn’t always have access to basic hygiene needs. Her clothes fit too small and a roof over her head was not a certainty.
“My birth mother suffered from poor self-esteem which led to her making poor life decisions with men,” Jamé says. “She was easily influenced and eventually got strung out on drugs. I remember us moving from a house to an apartment to a hotel to the street. I remember that vividly. I was about three or four.”
She left her mother when she was seven. By then, she had been exposed to everything that could accompany a homeless mother battling addiction.
“I didn't understand at the time why I went through as much as I did,” she says. “But I do believe that God chooses some of His strongest soldiers for some of the toughest battles. I didn't know then that those tests would later be my testimony to help other people."
While sleeping in doorways and abandoned buildings, the one constant in her life was school. With its comforting consistency, climate controlled environment and a definite meal, school was her safe place. As a result, she always did well and kept her grades up. When she lived with her foster family, she went to one of the best high schools in San Francisco. She recalls having counselors who believed in her, even though she admits she’s not sure what they saw in her at the time.
Between doing well in school and having supportive people around her, Jamé took a large step in defeating the odds by graduating high school early and continuing her education at Lemoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee. There, she earned an undergraduate degree in social work. She didn’t stop with only her bachelor’s in hand. Jamé also holds an MBA degree from Strayer University and a master’s in social work from the University of Memphis.
She lived in Memphis for 15 years, working on her numerous degrees and eventually taking a full-time job as a director of a foster care program.
“I loved Memphis, however, I got to the point where I felt like I had outgrown it,” Jamé explains. “I had reached the point at my job where there wasn't any more room for growth. I had heard that there were great opportunities in Texas, that there was more diversity and more things to do. It was a little bit closer to home and easier to fly out of.”
Upon securing a foster care job in Dallas, Jamé packed her bags and relocated her life once more.
A Roundabout Road To GRACE
The job she moved for ended up not working out. This was completely unexpected and suddenly Jamé ended up working as a waitress. She took a full-time community and school engagement job in Fort Worth, but still had to wait tables to make ends meet. Pulling on a survivalist mentality from her childhood, Jamé wasn’t going to give up.
Neither of these jobs provided health insurance, but in retrospect, Jamé believes that was all part of God’s plan. When her health took a turn, she ended up going exactly where she needed to go.
“My heart felt like it was pounding harder than usual and there was a tingling in my hands,” she says. “I needed to get to a doctor, so I looked up clinics in the area.”
That led her to GRACE’s clinic.
“The clinic director is the one who told me about a case manager position in transitional housing,” Jamé says. “When she spoke with me and saw me, she was like, ‘Oh, we have an open position, you'd be perfect for it.’"
At GRACE’s clinic, Jamé was diagnosed with diabetes. But that’s not her main takeaway from the visit.
She walked away with a job lead to once again pursue her passion for helping people.
Two weeks into her working as a case manager at GRACE, her supervisor moved on to a different position. Within two and a half months, Jamé was promoted to transitional housing program manager.
Building People's Confidence And Credit Scores
GRACE has many branches. From the food pantry to the clinic to transitional housing, all of these services and programs work to help people in crisis. They service the individuals and families, men and women, with or without children to become self-sufficient.
To qualify for the transitional housing program, their main requirement is being able to work and being homeless. Homelessness is defined as the individual not having a nightly residence in their name, so even if they are living out of a car or motel, they can still apply for the program.
“What I love about this program – for as long as I've worked in social work I've never seen anything like it – is that we do anything and everything that we can within our power to assist them with becoming self-sufficient,” Jamé explains. “So we truly tailor the program to their needs. There are not any cookie cutter answers.”
As she walks through a small, GRACE-owned apartment complex not far off of Grapevine’s Main Street, Jamé starts to light up. The sound of volunteers ripping up old flooring is like music to her ears. She loves making these rooms into homes. These apartments are fully furnished, from delicate decor accents to a stocked pantry.
"We want to make sure that the place feels as much like home as possible and that they feel safe and welcome,” she says.
That means going as far as interviewing program candidates to find out what kind of food they like and what some of their favorite decorative items are. The best part: Once the person graduates from the program and moves into their own place, they can take everything (with the exception of major appliances) with them.
Now living in a safe, reliable place, individuals and families are able to grow their savings and credit scores as they work to become self-sufficient.
“We focus a lot on building their self-esteem and budgeting,” Jamé says. “Our goal is to give them the skills to work with so that they don't end up back where they came from. It's not just putting a Band-Aid on it, it's getting to the root of the issue so that they can survive on their own.”
This can take on many forms beyond housing. People in the transitional housing program can also benefit from the nonprofit's other services, including the GRACE Pantry, Clothing Room and the GRACE resale stores. Their medical needs are cared for at the GRACE Community Clinic. With an army of volunteers and employees, GRACE is well equipped to get people on their feet. For Jamé, who has now worked with GRACE for two and a half years, it feels like life coming full circle. On top of holding three degrees, she is now studying for a licensure exam to become a licensed social worker.
“To come from being a little homeless girl who didn't think I would amount to anything, to being able to help other people is just amazing for me,” she says. “I feel like that's my purpose. To advocate for other people and help them get out their turmoil to wherever their destiny and purpose is in life.”