Support Without Strings

When Tobi Krizon moved to Greensboro in 2020, it was for a relationship. But, when it ended two years later, he found himself homeless for the first time in his life. A friend gave him some money, and he got into an extended-stay hotel. That kept him off the street, but it was still a precarious position.

“I was trying to make money to be able to stay in a hotel, and I found myself in a repetitive pit,” Krizon said. “I didn’t have enough money. It was day to day. I didn’t think I was ever going to get out of that cycle.”

That’s when Krizon learned about a direct-payment program for people who are unhoused. It became the lifeline he needed to get into secure housing.

“I felt like it was the exact answer to what I was looking for,” Krizon said.

Three years later, Krizon works at Held, a Greensboro organization that gives people experiencing homelessness money with no strings attached. Despite its success, it’s a rare model in the growing housing advocacy landscape. Since its beginning in January 2023, the program has helped more than a dozen people secure housing. Now, the organization is working to expand across the state and beyond.

Unconditional

Like many people experiencing homelessness, Krizon was working when he found himself unhoused. He picked up shifts at a gas station and thrift store, working about 50 hours per week. The amount he made was too much for financial assistance, but too little to secure an apartment on his own.

In July 2022, just four months after he became homeless, Krizon met John Thornton through a program run by Greensboro’s Interactive Resource Center while working at Goodwill. At the IRC, Thornton was working on a trial run of an innovative program that looked to give money directly to unhoused people.

Through his work, Thornton found that when people were housed, it was easier for them to access resources like a bank account or financial assistance. Based on this housing-first logic, Thornton raised $50,000 from about a dozen private donors and started the program with 10 people. The organization gave each of them $5,000 upfront, with no expectation of repayment and no conditions on how the money is spent.

“People have a lot of needs, and one of them is money,” Thornton said. “That’s often the missing ingredient. Money can’t buy happiness, but happiness can’t buy groceries. It can’t pay rent.”

Krizon was one of the program’s first participants.

“It was wild because I remember sitting in the hotel and thinking to myself, ‘If I just had $5,000, I think I could get myself out of this,’” he recalled. 

Krizon, who is transgender, said he was stalked and almost trafficked for sex while living in a hotel. Data has shown that trans and genderqueer people are more likely to be unhoused than cisgender people due to housing discrimination, economic factors, or lack of family support.

After joining the program, Krizon used $3,000 to pay the first month’s rent for an apartment, buy furniture, and move stuff out of storage. The program also gave him a phone for a year and a support person to contact if he needed help.

A year later, Krizon met with Thornton again and learned he had started his own organization focused solely on direct payments. Thornton asked Krizon to be one of Held’s first staffers, working to support those in the program. That was in July 2023. Since then, Held has helped 18 people locally and has six people currently enrolled.

While the organization is largely Greensboro-focused, Held has worked with partners in Forsyth County and Charlotte to develop similar pipelines. The organization also works with Duke University to help families on Medicaid who receive $50 per week. Partnerships in Raleigh and Charleston, South Carolina, are on the horizon.

Because of its unique model, Held is often the starting point for cities or other housing advocacy organizations interested in setting up direct payments.

“It isn’t something a lot of people are doing, but there’s a really deep need for it,” Thornton said.

Currently, Held offers Greensboro participants an unconditional $3,000 upfront, followed by $750 per month for a year. The key, Thornton said, is finding people who have the best chance of securing housing. They do this by partnering with local organizations that are already connected to those in need. Often, candidates have jobs and are staying in a hotel, with a family member or a friend or sleeping in a vehicle.

Thornton knows $3,000 isn’t enough for a person living on the street to get their own place. But for those on the cusp, like Krizon, that little boost makes all the difference.

“There are a lot of people that need more than the amount that we’re giving,” Thornton said. “But there are a lot of people for whom this does work.”

Worth the Risk

That includes people like Lillian Barrett.

Barrett was working in retail when she was evicted from her apartment. She had worked there for about a year, but the store kept cutting her hours. She fell behind on her rent and was kicked out in October 2023, a week after her birthday.

Barrett and her teenage daughter, Leah, lived in her car for seven months. In May 2024, Leah called Guilford County’s Department of Social Services. The state took custody of her, and she was placed in a foster home.

Single mothers, like transgender people, face a higher risk of housing insecurity for a variety of reasons, according to national data.

After her daughter was put in foster care, Barrett temporarily moved into her sister’s house. A short while later, she learned about Held through a local housing advocate. Barrett said she was skeptical at first.

“I was like, ‘Who was just going to give out money like that?’” she said. “I knew they were going to want something in return.”

The next week, she attended an orientation and learned the organization would give her money to find housing. A week later, Barrett found an apartment and used the money to pay the first month’s rent and deposit.

“It was so helpful,” she said.

Thornton understands Barrett and Krizon’s skepticism about the model. He gets why the idea would make some of the most devout housing advocates skeptical, too.

“Maybe they’ve been burned by helping someone in the past,” he said.

There’s a certain amount of risk with any program like Held, he said. The person could use the money for things other than housing, which has happened in the past. But he knows giving a few dollars on the street isn’t going to help people secure housing.

“If you’re not going to help someone, I get it,” Thornton said. “Times are tight for a lot of people. There’s a lot of reasons not to give, but I don’t want to pretend like my being scared of how they’re going to spend it is a good one.”

What he’s really giving them is trust, he said. Held doesn’t monitor how the money gets spent. They give monthly payments for a year, no matter what.

“I find that to be freeing for me and for them,” Thornton said. “It frees our organization from having to look over their shoulder all the time. It’s also really empowering.”

In May of this year, Barrett’s daughter, Leah, now 16, moved into the apartment with her. She’s still officially under the state’s custody for now. Soon, they hope to be reunited for good.

Since starting Held’s program in January, Barrett said her entire life has changed.

When she was unhoused, she was constantly worried about where to shower or what clothes to wear. She was depressed. But now, her mental health has improved, she said. And her relationship with her daughter is better, too.

“She said it wasn’t easy for her,” Barrett said about Leah calling DSS. “But she knows it was the best for both of us, and we both had time apart to work on ourselves.”

Moving forward, Thornton said he wants to expand the program to help more people like Barrett.

In July, a comedy show fundraiser with writers from Saturday Night Live helped raise almost $50,000 for Held. The organization hasn’t received any funding from the city or county, but Thornton says he plans to increase partnerships with organizations and municipalities in the next year. His goal is to help at least 45 people by the end of 2025.

“Our target demographic is people who need money,” he said. “Well, that’s everyone. So there’s no shortage of need.”

Krizon continues working with Held. He loves being able to give back by helping those who find themselves in dire situations like he experienced.

“I want to tell them that somehow, somewhere there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “I’ve been there, and it’s one step at a time.”

Sayaka Matsuoka is a Greensboro-based reporter for The Assembly. She was formerly the managing editor for Triad City Beat.

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