Video: Recovery House Takes Women from Homelessness to Success

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COLUMBUS, Miss (WCBI) – Mississippi United to End Homelessness started counting the number of homeless in the state on Tuesday.  One woman turned her life around after entering a homeless and addiction recovery program right here in Columbus.

On any given day an estimated 2,300 men, women and children are homeless in the state of Mississippi. Linder Burt was one of those people before coming to the Recovery House in Columbus.

“It had gotten to the point that I would at night walk around in the neighborhoods. I would go to people’s houses and ask them could I please sleep there at least for that night. Sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn’t. It was just really, really hard,” says Burt.

Burt says she first became homeless while living in Chicago. She returned home to Bolivar County, Mississippi but her drug and alcohol addictions set her back again.

“At that point, I started going to jail which was fine with me because I had no where to sleep. At least I had a bed, a warm place and food to eat. So even that was good for me,” says Burt.

Today, Linder Burt has permanent housing and is an employee at the Recovery House where she got her life back.

“I learned how to live again, I learned how to be a good member of society, I learned how to love again. I just learned a whole new way of living. March 23rd will make my 5th year of being clean and sober and today life is everything to me,” says Burt.

Seventy percent of those who become homeless due so because of a temporary set-back. Mississippi United to End Homelessness supports places like Recovery House in hopes of ending homelessness, just as they did for Linder Burt.

The Recovery House receives a HUD grant to help provide permanent housing for those in the program.