When Verneice Prince ’17, M.S.W. ’20, and her son arrived at his school, she’d open the trunk of her car, pull out a loaf of bread, and prepare his lunch: a beef bologna sandwich. They were homeless, living in a Detroit shelter where residents weren’t allowed to bring in food.

One night she asked if she could put his food in the shelter refrigerator and was told she could not. There were words, and Prince and her son were put out on the street that night. Seven months pregnant, with no money and a car that wouldn’t start, she and her son started walking until she couldn’t go any farther and laid down on the sidewalk. A police car slowed and pulled over. Her son thought they were in trouble, but Prince knew differently. Now they’d have a ride to another shelter.

For the first 20 years of her life, Prince grew up in foster care, keeping her clothes in trash bags because she never felt secure enough to put them anywhere else. She never had a birthday cake, a sleepover, or a family vacation.

“There was no childhood for me,” she said. “I know what it is like to have needs but no one to call on to help meet those needs.”

In 2017, the single mother of four earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from Illinois State University, and in 2020, her master’s. At 51, she is the CEO of a nonprofit she founded in 2018 to help people facing homelessness, Cruisin’ Outta Poverty Services. 

“If I can help one person, whether it is the children I work with or clients that come through, I would feel like I took back what was taken from me in my childhood.” 

—Verneice Prince ’17, M.S.W. ’20

Prince provides an umbrella of services for those seeking emergency shelter, transportation, clothing, and food. She will enroll and tutor those interested in GED classes, has provided an address for job applicants, and temporarily cared for pets. As a counselor, mentor, and navigator, she moves people from homelessness to hope. 

On the door of the nonprofit’s storefront in an outlet mall in Normal is a handwritten sign that reads, “If we are not here, we are serving the community.”

“We answer the call when someone is in need of help that they cannot get anywhere else,” she said, sitting in the back room she’s turned into a kitchen for those needing a place to sit, talk, or warm a meal. “This is where I want to be.”

Prince meets people where they are, and sometimes that’s standing outside their tent in a parking lot encampment. She understands not wanting help or not wanting to be seen. She’s been there. 

“If I come to you and I haven’t showered, my clothes are soiled, I don’t want to be in front of you. I can’t come to you for help because I’m not in any condition to,” she said. “Once we get their basic needs met, we take it from there.” 

Homelessness is a growing issue in McLean County, where 15.7% of the population lived in poverty in 2021, rising from 14.2% in 2016, according to data from the McLean County Regional Planning Commission. In 2023, there were 1,249 homeless adults and children.

When local shelters are full, Prince has driven people to a shelter 40 miles away. Last winter she shared her home with three people who had nowhere else to go.

Prince entered the foster care system when she was only a year old and was shuffled to so many families she has forgotten their names. She gave up hope of finding anyone to call mom or dad. Her goal was to survive childhood.

Aging out of the system at 20, she joined the United States Army, where she qualified as a truck driver only because a friend gave her a few driving lessons in a parking lot. The Army is where her education began when she took a college course. She always wanted to be a social worker.    

After two years in the Army, Prince was honorably discharged as a disabled veteran. But homelessness followed her through two marriages and four children as she moved around, staying with family who didn’t feel like family. In 2013, she moved to Bloomington and lived at Home Sweet Home Ministries with her three youngest children.

Wherever she was, she found a church and called on her faith when hope waned. One Sunday she saw a church van in the shelter parking lot and climbed in. After the service, she met the pastor’s wife, Dr. Karen Stipp, who happened to be an associate professor in Illinois State’s School of Social Work. Prince shared her dream of becoming a social worker, and Stipp became her encourager.

“She said she was going to be my cheerleader, and I didn’t know what a cheerleader was,” Prince said. “But she showed me.”

The School of Social Work has had students who experienced homelessness and food insecurity, Stipp said, “but the confluence of factors in Verneice was unique. She had little margin for error. Her student days—like her life—were about surviving while thriving.”

Prince works part time as a counselor at the Bloomington nonprofit INtegRIty Counseling and supplements her income as a substitute teacher and Uber driver. Whatever money is left over at the end of the month goes to her nonprofit.

A year ago, she wrote on Cruisin’ Outta Poverty Services’ Facebook page that she was facing some hard times of her own, feeling like she was still trying to escape poverty. She asked people to donate $1 to the nonprofit. Some did, but not enough.

Prince has received grants and donations and hopes to someday have an overnight shelter. She has the beginnings of a food pantry, but only enough rice, pasta, cereal, and vegetables to fill two grocery bags. A small refrigerator holds homemade meals. 

Every day she’s on her feet, sorting and organizing donations for the thrift store she opened next door. The disabled veteran doesn’t stop until she must. She keeps crutches and a walker close by but keeps the fear of returning to homelessness further away.

“Whatever I have to do to keep things going and be able to help people, that’s what I do,” she said. “I think I’ve finally let go of the fear of being homeless, but I know that it can happen.”

Stipp has had a decade-long relationship with Prince and sees her as a resilient and resourceful leader.

“One person can’t take on poverty all by themselves,” she said. “It takes a group of people to move the needle, and she’s one of the people who’s doing that in just incredible ways. With her faith and determination, she makes it happen every day.”

Prince is not only looking to change the stories of homeless people but also her own.

“I love what I do, and I will be here until I am not,” she said. “If I can help one person, whether it is the children I work with or clients that come through, I would feel like I took back what was taken from me in my childhood.”