Former Miss Colorado USA, Blair Griffith was living a double life that she managed to keep a secret until now.
The former beauty queen finally decided to talk about her situation in hopes of helping others.
Griffith
was a homeless youth. “It’s really hard to have these thoughts that you
can’t provide for yourself these basic needs… I was embarrassed to let
anyone know what was going on,” she told The Huffington Post.
She grew up in a nice house in an affluent
neighborhood, but when her father died from prostate cancer when she
was 15 everything changed.
Her mother soon after
had a heart attack and when her insurance would not cover medication
costs, Griffith’s mom had to shell out more than $500 a week for her
medication. It wasn’t long before the family couldn’t pay the rent, and
were evicted.
“I was in my early 20s, and this
actually happened right after I had won the title of Miss Colorado USA
back in 2011, so it was really, really hard to be sort of living this
double life of being this beauty queen where everything had to seem
perfect on the outside, but inside going home — or not going home — at
night, wondering, ‘Where am I going to sleep tonight?’ or ‘What am I
going to do next?'” said Griffith.
Now Griffith is
going across the country talking about her experience in hopes to
spread light on the problem of homelessness and youth homelessness and
to remove the stigma associated with it.
Griffith is now working with Start From Here, a campaign to end youth homelessness.
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