Rome Darring - Board Member

Rome Darring, center right, presenting the Homes for All Housing Champion award to Senator Paul Utke

My name is Rome Darring.
Board member of MICAH
Envision Community Leader
Member of Street Voices of Change
Member of Freedom From the Streets
On the Leadership Team for Homes for All as a person with lived experience.

Because of my love of advocacy and wanting to help the people of my community, I started out by joining the Street Voices of Change. And, through my membership there, I’d asked to join what became the Envision tiny home community.

Envision came about because the Innovation Group, from HCMC Hospital, came to Street Voices of Change one day to try to figure out housing options for homeless patients who needed a place to go when released from the hospital after treatment. HCMC didn’t want to jeopardize the health of people by releasing them to the street. That is how we became involved with the project and came up with the tiny homes and the name of the community, Envision.

I also just enjoy standing behind Homes for All on what they do because they are a collaboration of organizations who come together to fight as one on legislation in the state of Minnesota. They work to have a clear understanding and message about what’s needed and how to work with the legislators to get more money so we could get more housing out here.

My homelessness started in 2012, but there are events that led up to that.

I’m from Chicago, Illinois. I got incarcerated in 1992 and released in 1997. I came to Minnesota in 1997, July, to be with my friends at the time. I stayed with a friend, for almost a year, but during that time I thought it was good for me to move along and get my own place.

I went to a shelter and got a job through a temp service, they had me working at Valley Fair. We were allowed to do a lot of overtime and I was able to move out of the shelter within a month, to my first apartment.

I think I was there for four years. It was about then, one day, there was an incident behind my building. The police were called. When I come out of my apartment, on my way to work, they confronted me and found out I had an outstanding warrant in the state of Illinois. I was re-incarcerated for another year. Once I was released, I came back to Minnesota to start to live my life over.

I’d spent some time in greater Minnesota before coming back to Minneapolis. When my wife’s mother got sick with brain cancer, she had to go to Chicago to help her. During that time I was working, but by myself I was unable to afford the duplex we had.

And that was in 2012. August. I moved out and went to the Salvation Army. From there I’ve been homeless off and on over the years.

So, it was in 2019 when I joined the MICAH board.

What I like about being with MICAH is that they keep the history of advocacy in the fight for housing. MICAH takes time to teach and support the people on how to fight for affordable housing and take on that advocacy.

MICAH had given me such an insight on how to do this advocacy work. At first, I did not have a clue for how much it took. How much drive you had to have to really be an advocate for the community. It did not seem so hard, so rough, so tough. You have to give a lot away to be able to do this advocacy work. It is very hard. Very stressful.

I really admire Junail Freeman Anderson. She is on the same level as I am, but she is so driven to help the people that it makes me want to do better. She is so driven for the people that she started her own advocacy group, Freedom From the Streets, so she could reach as many people as possible.

By my being on the board, it is my hope to become one of the best advocates for the people in the community. And, what I mean by community is the whole state of Minnesota so far.