Advocate for homeless builds on experience
"Adam Kravitz found purpose through loss, hardship"
http://www.columbian.com/news/2015/dec/15/advocate-for-homeless-builds-on-experience/
By Katie Gillespie, Columbian County Government Reporter
Published: December 15, 2015, 10:00 AM
Adam Kravitz’s life story has been full of loss.
His older brothers died of drug overdoses in 2001 and 2004. He also lost his mother to her drug addiction about 15 years ago.
He also tells of an unexpected death of a girlfriend seven years ago, which Kravitz said broke something inside him. Alone from the deaths of so many people he loved, Kravitz chose a life on the streets, turning away from his home, his possessions and his job as a restaurant manager.
“Any time I ever had anyone close to me they seemed to die,” Kravitz said. “It was the last straw for me at this point.”
For nearly six years, Kravitz was homeless. Despite the loss of his family members due to drug addiction, he isolated himself from the rest of the world by turning to methamphetamine. It kept him warm and awake on cold nights, and helped him forget his suffering, he said.
But fast-forward to this year. After years of homelessness, multiple arrests for drug possession and nearly two years reshaping his life in drug court, Kravitz, now 49, is a local leader in the fight against Clark County’s homeless problem. He uses his own experiences to help those in the same place he once was. His nonprofit, Outsiders Inn, helps empower homeless people to connect with the services they need. Most recently, he was invited to be a peer mentor for the residents of a proposed temporary emergency village for the homeless near the Garrison Square shopping center in central Vancouver.