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Seráh Blain is fighting homelessness with homelessness.
Blain, the executive director of a local political-advocacy group, the Secular Coalition for Arizona, has been voluntarily living on the streets of Phoenix for more than a week now.
Blain plans on remaining homeless until she reaches a fundraising goal of $56,310, or $2 per person who experienced homelessness in Arizona last year, per Arizona Department of Economic Security statistics.
She’s raising the money for the Madison Street Veterans Association, specifically, its program for female veterans. The organization runs a housing facility near Interstate 10 and Seventh Street, which offers transitional housing to as many as 53 veterans at a time.
Blain documenting her experience on a website she created for the project, which has explained her transition from an actual home to sleeping on the streets of Phoenix.
It’s certainly a dramatic transition, as just a couple months ago, you could find Blain in business attire, meeting with legislators at the state capitol, and now she’s waking up in parking lots.
In fact, in a recent e-mail exchange with Blain, she told us that one of those legislators she frequently sees didn’t recognize her as she made her way to the food line at a St. Vincent de Paul location.
Mayor Greg Stanton has endorsed Blain’s project, saying, in part, that he’s “proud to support this bold effort to bring attention to the plight of Arizonans enduring homelessness.”
Click here to check out more details on the project.
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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.
