We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marques Giles. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marques below.
Hi Marques, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes from having a stereotypical 80s and early 90s upbringing being raised by a single mother without a father in an environment where gangs where recruiting young boys who looked like me. Like most young males at the time being inundated with ways out that were and still are cliches. I dreamed of playing sports and taking care of my mother had madsion Avenue presented something different that made money and marketed to my demographic I would have chosen something different. Long story short it comes from simply wanting to take care of my mother, my daughter and now even my long lost sister if I need to. I want to run a race and win and not only for myself but for those who can’t.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I was honestly living life just trying to honor my mother by being a 3 dimensional thinker who stayed away from chliches and your marketed trappings of my demographic. Then two things happened, one in 2016 I followed my passion and decided to get into human services. I quickly got a promotion and started managing a no turn away homeless shelter for families. I saw my star rise as I managed everything from homeless families to single adult ,youth corrections and even Unaccompanied minors. The second monumental event was the brith of my daughter and some advice an older African gentleman told me which was now that your baby Girl is born never let racism be the excuse that stops you from feeding her. She needs you to overcome and have zero excuses. I definitely as they say understood the assignment and looked at it as a truly blessed moment and task.
I have learned a lot about myself as I have vaslated my scope of prsctice i
human services between homeless families, Unaccompanied minors, youth facing and doing 100 year prison sentences, elderly who are facing and enduring homeless and currently children who have aged out of foster care And are currently without shelter. What I have learned is that I enjoy helping and in my opinion I have learned what not to do. I believe that this experience has made me prime to support and push my own housing program and that’s what I am hoping to do for the Mary Kiona Foundation in Hillsboro Oregon. We are attempting to embark on a culturally specific but open to all permanent supportive and transitional housing projects in Portland and hopefully soon Arizona.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Adversity, patience and ultimately triumph. Life is hard. Success is hard. I tell my clients everyday to “hit singles”. Chip away at the journey and attempt to learn what you need to learn. I understand that is easier said then done as I am attempting to recover from being in a wheelchair for a year and a walker and cane this past year. If people are early in their journey I would implore them to focus on what would make them content vs happy. I believe that mental health would be better if we narrowed down what would satisfy us vs what the next person or persons has. My advice I’d nothing earth shattering that people haven’t been espousing for decacdes.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I want to collaborate with a myriad of people, people who want to own property, people who want to help others, people who have a resilient spirt and business savvy. I am pretty much open to anyone who wants solutions and wants to become economically empowered. Again back to my one of my early statements, my daughter’s well being means that as her father I have to be multidimensional, problem solving and nuanced. The industry and the clients that I have helped all deserve me to put aside politics, race and gender and get down to solutions. There are mothers out there living in their car with their two children and haven’t had access to showers or feminine wipes in months. It is tough times in America.
Image Credits
These are all taken by me
