Same man.
Two Different Stories.
The story of Johnny, and the
home that changes everything.
Part One
His name is Johnny
He's 38. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 23. Fifteen years of meeting with an overworked case manager. Fifteen years of chaos, then stability, then chaos again. He's been hospitalized more times than he knows. He's lived in more places than most people cycle through in a lifetime, in just fifteen years.
Johnny is not what most people picture when they hear "schizophrenia." He's not violent. He's not yelling at strangers on the street. Most of the time, he's quiet, in his own mind. He asks you how you are when you greet him. He likes baseball and donuts. He has a sense of humor that his family loves. Cold brew is his favorite type of coffee. But black, make sure it's black.
Sometimes Johnny is doing “well.” He takes his medication, sleeps 8 hours a day and spends time with his parents and friends.
​
But what happens when Johnny isn’t “well?” What happens when something changes? For his fifteen years with serious mental illness, the world has had only two answers for where a man like Johnny should live; government funded transitional group homes and independent housing in at-risk areas.
What would it look like, if there was a place that was made especially for Johnny? Where the barriers that he faces every day weren’t so heavy? What if the house was a place where community gathered, people looked him in the eyes and told them they were happy to see him? These may seem like simple things to most people. But to Johnny, they are everything. And for the first time in fifteen years, he feels like a real person.
This is Johnny's story - told two different ways.
Johnny is a composite — not one person, but many. He represents men Deborah has known, walked alongside, prayed for, and worried about.
Part Two
Johnny's Oasis
1. The "Other Home"
It's 10:30 am, Johnny wakes up to the sound of a TV. It's been on since yesterday. No one turned it off. He wanders around for a while before he walks to the kitchen.
He opens the refrigerator around noon. There's a package of lunch meat pushed to the back: he's not sure when he bought it. The date on the label is from last year. He stares at it for a moment and then closes the door.
When Johnny’s brother visited, he tried to throw away the expired food. But he was told he couldn’t. The group home staff were following the rules. It's his food. His choice. His life. That's what the system calls independence: the right to eat spoiled meat, or never eat at all, with no one authorized to intervene or even ask, "Johnny, are you hungry? I haven’t seen you eat in a while…”
Johnny looks through the sliding glass door that opens to the yard. He sees a concrete slab, a rusted metal chair, weeds pushing through a crack by the wall. Nothing that says come outside. Nothing that suggests anyone has thought about what he might need or like to make it feel like home. Johnny never goes out there. Why would he?
The afternoon dissolves. He opens a can of tuna and eats in front of the TV, which is still on from yesterday. Johnny takes two bites and puts it on the wobbly coffee table. There is a cut on his arm that's been there for two weeks. He noticed it this morning. No one else has seen it because no one else is looking.
This is Friday. It will look almost exactly like Thursday, which looked like Wednesday.
Johnny is free. That's what they call it. And he is completely, entirely alone.
To stay updated on Kenny's Home, sign up to get our newsletter!
2. Kenny's Home
Johnny wakes up and can already smell coffee.
Not because someone made it for him, but because this is a house where people are up and moving, and someone else's morning bleeds into his. He can hear the kitchen from down the hall. A cabinet opens, he hears a low conversation. The ordinary sound of people who know each other.
Johnny is excited to get up and start his day. He pours himself a black cup of coffee and looks at the bulletin board in the kitchen. “Are you excited for tonight, Johnny?” his house-mate asks. Johnny actually has something to look forward to.
Friday at Kenny's Home is Table Fellowship Night. “Are you guys ready for tonight? Can I help you get ready with anything?” the house staff member asks. “We are good!”
Johnny was asked yesterday what sounded good for dinner- not what he needed, not what was practical, just what sounded good to him. He said he was craving burgers, so that is what they are making for Table Fellowship night.
“Oh, by the way Johnny, how is your arm? Did the doctor help you out?”
“Yeah he did, he gave me an ointment and its healing already!”
Johnny didn’t ask for help. Someone noticed him, and cared.
The sun started to set and the Table Fellowship community gathered around the table on the patio.
Dan Landis and his team at Landiscape designed this space specifically with someone like Johnny in mind. Wide, easy-to-navigate walking paths, low-maintenance planting, because the goal isn't upkeep, it's use. Shade and places to sit, because in Arizona heat, an outdoor space that doesn't account for the sun isn't an outdoor space at all. Every decision came from a question Dan was willing to ask: what does a man with serious mental illness actually need out here? And what could it look like if a community of people gathered together with him?
What Johnny needs is what will happen at Kenny’s Home.
He didn't have a word for what the other Friday felt like, the one in a group home. He doesn't have a word for this one either. But he knows the difference between being free and being seen.
At Kenny's Home, he gets to be both.