Four Winds Empowerment, Inc.

While various housing programs are considered the first steps towards helping the homeless population, critical pieces to the puzzle are still missing or are not adequately addressed in the movement to end homelessness.

 

Four Winds Empowerment is a positive step towards being these missing puzzle pieces.  In the form of interactive educational seminars based on Four Winds:  (1) Self-Awareness;  (2) Self-Care;  (3) Self-Direction; and (4) Self-Determination, we work with Amarillo's homeless individuals to begin their life transformation journey.  Employees/participants) will be employed by making a product that will benefit the public.  We call this an Earning While Learning Business Model, in that 60% of the daily (Monday - Friday) work/program time will be working on a product, and the remaining 40% of time will be spent attending educational seminars and group discussions, meeting weekly with a case manager, and working on their own custom-designed goals and objectives while earning a living wage.    

​

Homelessness can come about due to many causes.  We at Four Winds Empowerment aim to break the stigma that homeless people are lazy and don't want to work.  Not always true.  Sometimes, it becomes generational homelessness, resulting in passing down negative thoughts and behaviors from parents to children and so forth instilling notions that "It is what it is," "I'm no good," and "Things are not going to get better."  FWE wants to break this cycle.  Homelessness can be the result of mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, extreme or chronic health problems, loss of a job, eviction, home foreclosure, and natural disasters for instance. 

​

Our main FWE goal is that upon completion of the Four Winds seminars, learning new job skills and job ethics, and completion of their own self-designed life/career goals, participants will feel empowered over their own lives, empowered to shape their own future, get a new job, on the path to a new career, deeper and closer relationships, and the realization that they have a voice and the power to plan and make positive choices.

 

Our strategic plan talks about our FWE future dream of developing a "working/learning campus" for homeless individuals.  This will be a safe space that will offer more jobs and skills training in growing food, culinary arts, various trades, entrepreneurship, creating a council for and ran by homeless people to problem-solve and advocate for self and others, and offering university internships for a hands-on experience.

  

FWE is identified as a public charity based in Amarillo, Texas.  We are a proud social enterprise serving the common good.  We received IRS 501(c)3 tax exempt status along with IRC Section 170, and Sections 2055, 2106, and 2522 on May 17, 2022.