In the final episode of our “Workforce Series,” Vocational Center Manager Matt LaBorde speaks with Sharon Baker and Jewel McNeill, who both work for UPIC Health and are former N Street Village clients.
As a child, Jewel experienced family trauma and abandonment. Life was hard at home and as a teenager, she looked to escape any way she could.
Jewel got married at age 17, left home with her new husband, and had her first child. But her marriage didn’t work out as she hoped. Her husband struggled with drug addiction, and Jewel suffered through years of verbal and physical abuse.
“I was born and raised in Washington, DC. I had a great life, a wonderful husband, two children, and a 23 year career with the Washington Police Department.” As a drastic before and after picture flashed upon the big screen, Lee shared, “At 36, I was at an emotionally distressed place. I turned to alcohol and then cocaine to fill the void, and I lost everything. I escaped to NY, and I experienced every bad thing that could happen to a woman on drugs in NY: I am the survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse.” Her turning point, she says, is when some police offers stopped to say hello to her, and she remembered a glimmer of her past life. She got on the Greyhound bus back to DC.