From Swamps to Shelter: Building Hope in Rural California
"We don’t quit five minutes before the miracle, my friend." — Matt Vorderstrasse
In early 2024, the vision for the Del Norte Mission Possible (DNMP) campus in Crescent City, CA, was exactly that: a vision. While the community saw only "ditches" and construction delays, a deeper transformation was taking place within the team.
Consider the story of Darcy. For a decade, Darcy lived in the local encampments, known locally as "the swamps". She was first reached through the "Mission Redemption" program, where she worked picking up garbage in the very areas she lived. Through the DNMP’s support, Darcy found a pathway to sobriety and stability.
By 2025, the woman who once hid in the brush was standing before the community at a town hall, receiving a standing ovation for her journey. Today, she is a Case Manager at DNMP, holding the keys to her own home and helping others navigate the same path she once walked. This is the heartbeat of our work: moving people "from camps to leaders".
The Pain Point: The “Geographic Label” Barrier
In a rural community, where you lay your head defines your identity to the world around you. For neighbors like Darcy, the greatest hurdle wasn't just the mud of the "swamps," but the systemic discrimination that comes with that address.
In rural areas, neighbors living in encampments are often automatically labeled by local institutions; for example, they may be viewed as "drug seekers" at the hospital before a single symptom is even discussed.
This "us and them" mentality creates a social silo that makes it nearly impossible for our neighbors to feel like they belong to the community they inhabit. It is a crushing weight when the very people you turn to for help see a "problem to be solved" rather than a vulnerable community member with inherent worth
The Key Lesson Learned: The "Secret Sauce" of Support
We learned that building a shelter is only half the battle; the other half is restoring a person's dignity and positive self-concept. True transformation happens when we stop treating neighbors as "objects" of our good intentions and start seeing them as resource partners.
By providing Darcy with a path to earn a living wage as a "peer support specialist" rather than just a "garbage volunteer," we helped her trade her "swamp label" for a title of dignity. We must remind those who are hurting who they really are until they have enough "borrowed belief" to believe it themselves.
The Full-Circle Transformation
Bridging the gap between the swamp and a stable home requires a team that understands how to dismantle both physical and social barriers.
Our Technical Assistance team—Chad McComas, Matt Vorderstrasse, Phil Johncock, and our exceptional team, many with “lived experience”—brings over 70 years of combined experience to help you train your workforce and volunteers.
Book a free consultation today and let us help you reframe the narrative in your community from "us and them" to a unified "we," completing the circle from geographic isolation to empowered leadership.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Compass Metaphor: Dealing with geographic stigma is like trying to navigate with a broken compass; no matter how hard you walk, the world keeps pointing you back to where you started. Relational support is the tool that recalibrates that compass, finally allowing our neighbors to find their true north.
By,
Phil Johncock, MA, MMs, GPC
PhilJohncock.com | PhilJohncock@gmail.com | (702) 518-8756