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Texas Native and Miss NTD Pageant Winner on Discovering Traditional Feminine Virtues and What Real Beauty Is

Cynthia Sun photographed at a sunflower field in upstate New York. Sunflowers are among her favorite flowers. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)

When the hosts of the Miss NTD pageant announced the winner, it took Cynthia Sun a few moments to realize she had won. She stood in stunned silence, thinking they had made a mistake. Sun had not expected to win. In interviews and conversations with friends and family, she had openly shared her doubts, believing she lacked the talents that other contestants showcased—singing, dancing, or musical prowess.

Sun said, “I can ride a horse, but obviously you can’t do equestrian on stage. I can dive, I’ve done cliff jumping a lot, but there’s no cliff on the stage. I can swim really well—there’s no pool. I can play badminton—there’s no court. And I can play soccer—there’s no field. I also really like Ultimate Frisbee, but there’s no space for that. So I just gave up, and then I just put none [as talent for the pageant].”

But this was no typical pageant. While physical beauty and artistic talent were still valued, the contest emphasized celebrating five essential virtues inherent in traditional culture—morality, righteousness, propriety, benevolence, and faithfulness. The chance to study those virtues deeply motivated Sun to join the pageant. “To think about how I can be the best version of myself, but also to meet other young women who also prioritize these virtues. We’re trying to implement them in modern-day society—that was the motivation for me to actually join.”

NTD is a New York-based global television network founded in 2001 by Chinese Americans who fled communism. The pageant required participants to be at least one-third of Chinese descent. (Starting in 2025, the pageant will be open to women of all ethnic backgrounds). Sun, born and raised in Pearland, Texas, a quiet suburb south of Houston, is 100 percent ethnically Chinese. However, she didn’t always feel that way.

As a Chinese American, she felt her identity was split into two halves. “I vividly remember when I was younger, I used to tell my parents that I was hanging out with my friend group from the Chinese half of my identity, or the American half of my identity. And so for me, it was like two different worlds.”

(Larry Dye)

She felt at a disadvantage compared to the other contestants, who grew up closer to their Chinese heritage. They could recite poems from different Chinese dynasties and were very familiar with the historical figures that shaped the 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture. “It just bemused me, but also befuddled me, that it could even be possible, because there was such a high level of artistic and literary knowledge that it was just unbelievable for me,” Sun said.

However, as she prepared for the pageant and reflected on the five virtues, she realized that her two sides—the American and the Chinese—weren’t that different after all. Southern hospitality, in particular, resonated with some of the virtues emphasized by the pageant, such as benevolence and propriety. “I think community is such a huge part of the Texas spirit. Through all of my experiences, I could think of at least several stories for each of the five virtues that helped me stand out and give me confidence that these universal values do come from a place that I can call my own.”

Her understanding of the five virtues comes from a very personal place, not limited to the superficial meaning of the words. “I think the balance for me is a mixture of listening and internalizing, which is very much a Chinese thing. But also trying to be encouraging and openly inviting, and accommodating, which is something that Southern culture really holds dear.”

She believes that opening up about this duality with the pageant’s judges during the Q&A section helped her win the competition. “I was just very honest. I told them that as a Chinese American woman, I was working very hard to reconnect and rejoice in my traditional Chinese heritage, which I felt had been unlinked and unattached from me for so long. I felt like I’m not completely considered American in America. I’m not considered Chinese in China. But I feel it’s possible to bridge both cultures, both modern and traditional, and present that in myself. That’s who I actually am as a whole.”

She thinks her message resonated with the panelists that night, and that’s why she won. “It was very surprising, but also very heartwarming to know that as a Chinese American, I can actually embody these traditional values inside myself and present them to the world.”

Her Life-Changing Experience In China

Sun has visited China three times in her life: as a baby, when she was 12 years old, and after graduating from high school at 17. Her parents had come to America as college students in the 1990s, while the rest of the family remained in China. The second time, when she was 12, she traveled only with her father, as her mother had been blacklisted for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual practice severely persecuted in China by the Communist Party since 1999—the same year Sun was born.

The moment she and her father landed at an airport in Inner Mongolia, in northern China, they noted they were being followed. When they arrived at her grandparents’ house, they had barely said hello when three policemen knocked on the door, wanting them to go to the police station for an interrogation.

“They didn’t want me to give my grandparents any ideas about free thought or American culture or inspire them to join us in America as a family,” Cynthia said.

Sun won the inaugural Miss NTD pageant, held in October 2023. (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)

Maybe it was their American passports that made the police officers relent, but Cynthia’s father realized that staying with their family could put her grandparents at risk. So, they cut the visit short and left.

“I felt like I was in a James Bond movie or something,” Sun recalled. Her father suggested they go to a nearby mall, and the policemen followed them. There, they moved from store to store, trying to evade them. Her father even removed the battery from his phone to avoid being tracked.

For Sun, the whole situation felt bizarre. Even though she was only 12, she was taller than the three policemen—“I could see the top of their heads,” she said—and couldn’t understand why they would chase down a girl and her father who were just visiting family.

“I was actually not very scared because as an American citizen, and my father as an American citizen, I was really confident,” she said. “Maybe it’s the Texan spirit in me, but I was really confident that they couldn’t do anything to us. Even if they did, you know, America would step up.”

They later caught the first flight they found back to America with no further incidents, but the experience had already left a mark on Sun.

In America, she had participated in rallies in front of Chinese consulates in different cities to protest the persecution of Falun Gong in China. She knew many people who practiced the gentle exercises and meditation in parks in Texas, and had heard stories of some who had family persecuted in China for believing in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance—the three principles of Falun Gong. However, experiencing firsthand surveillance and the pressure on her family members gave her a new perspective.

“I found that the stories that you hear, sometimes it feels like they’re just numbers, and they’re just words on a page,” she said. “But to really experience that in real life … I had a newfound appreciation of what the millions of practitioners in China are going through.”

The experience spurred her to do more research and later pursue International Relations and Global Studies at the University of Texas in Austin, with a focus on human rights. She wrote two theses focused on how the West is inadvertently complicit in China’s human rights abuses. For example, American pharmaceutical companies that provide medical supplies to China might not know that those supplies are used to forcibly harvest organs from prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs. “That really shocked me. But it also motivated me because this was actually something that we could stop the demand of, and the supply of, because it was coming from within America, a country that I call my home.” 

(Samira Bouaou for American Essence)

A Newfound Purpose

After she won Miss NTD’s crown, people encouraged Sun to compete in other pageants as well. She takes it as a compliment, but is certain she won’t participate in them. Even though other pageants also require effort and discipline to win—diets, gym workouts, mental preparedness—she doesn’t find deeper meanings in them.

As Miss NTD, she is now aware that other young women will take her as a role model—not only because of her beauty but also as an embodiment of the five core virtues promoted by the pageant. “There’s a very big sense of responsibility being the very first inaugural Miss NTD. And knowing that younger women will see my image, my behavior, and take me as a role model … and also my internal responsibility, I guess towards being a better version of myself and also being better for the benefit of people around me.”

When other women ask her how to live by those virtues, she encourages them to find their real selves and purpose in life. “I think everyone has all five virtues inside them. Naturally, inherently, they embody those five virtues. For me, it wasn’t a matter of finding those virtues. It was a matter of how I can highlight them and bring them to the surface.”

“We’re all here trying to fulfill each of our missions and to do the best that we can for our communities. It plays out in different ways, and I find that so powerful.”

Cynthia Sun

Age: 25

Current occupations: Human rights researcher, foreign policy analyst

Your first job: Hostess at a Chinese buffet

Love language: Surprising people with personally curated bouquets. I love peonies, sunflowers, and hydrangeas the most.

Hobbies or talents: Making my friends laugh. Reading a book super fast. Hosting a great party. Winning at board games. Speaking in public.

How do you recharge? I’m a super extrovert—I recharge best by spending time with my friends and family. One of my favorite things to do on a day off is exploring new places and restaurants with my girlfriends. In the past few years, my lifestyle has unintentionally settled into a 1-4-12 schedule: spa day once a month, hiking four times a year, and traveling to a new country once every 12 months!

Favorite books: The “Treasured Tales of China” trilogy. 

Favorite movies: “Kung Fu Hustle,” “Monty Python— movies, “Eternal Spring,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.”

Something people don’t know about you:
I’m the opposite of a green thumb—every plant I raise ends up arriving in my mom’s garden on the verge of death. I’ve nearly killed a cactus once.

Your favorite thing about Texas: Good ole Southern hospitality! I miss when waitresses call me “love” and “sweetheart.” Barbecue takes a close second.

From Nov. Issue, Volume IV

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Features

Texas Interior Designer Cathy Kincaid’s Effortlessly Elegant Style Breathes New Life into Historic Homes

The sun-filled entry of Cathy Kincaid’s Dallas cottage, a one-story home built during the post-World War I era. (Miguel Floes-Vianna)

When historical American homes are in need of preservation and an exquisitely traditional makeover, their homeowners have turned to interior designer Cathy Kincaid for over 40 years. She’s played fairy godmother to dozens of charming houses that are full of character, including a 1750s Connecticut ferryman’s cottage on the water, Manhattan penthouses, and a forested East Texas estate. “I think it’s so important to live in something that has history,” Kincaid said. “I think it inspires us … to be interested in the history of the United States, where we live, our cities. And these older homes, they do have a story to tell.”

Many of the storied residences Kincaid has worked on have been featured in the world’s top home magazines and are compiled in her 2019 book, “The Well Adorned Home,” published by Rizzoli. Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, Kincaid attended Texas Christian University before moving to Dallas in the 1970s. There, she worked with local legendary designers before hanging up her own sign in 1978.

In her sweet but serious Texas drawl, she described two superb renovations that are close to her heart.

The farmhouse’s dining room is richly adorned with Kincaid’s signature choice of patterned upholstery. (Tria Giovan)

Texas Charm

The property Kincaid endearingly calls the “East Texas Farmhouse” is a recreation property on one of the largest remaining private lots close to Dallas, with hundreds of acres of forest, a lake, and a guest house. It was built in the mid-20th century by the famous wrestlers, the Von Erich brothers.

Although they made their living wrestling, the Von Erichs made sophisticated choices for their large farmhouse and were delightfully creative as they went about designing the space. Many of the door and window surrounds are made of half-sawn boards, their shapes, whimsically irregular, retaining the outlines of the local trees they came from. It’s a feature Kincaid said she’d never seen anywhere before.

The current homeowners fell in love with the raw lumber ceilings and exposed beams, the staircase with a balustrade of antler-like branches, and other masculine features. Kincaid preserved everything the Von Erichs did right and remodeled the furnishings, wall coverings, fixtures, and the like, taking the interiors from “kitschy” to perfectly elegant and ready to entertain. ”We wanted to create interiors that were comfortable and relaxed, that also exuded youthful style,” Kincaid said. It’s a house in the countryside, after all, so she didn’t want anything to feel “too precious or fancy. But at the same time, we wanted the interiors to reflect the refined style and taste of the homeowners.”

Kincaid preserved the raw lumber ceiling of the farmhouse and paired it with timeless decor for an elegant yet youthful look. (Tria Giovan)

Kincaid’s signature touch is obvious in the stately yet comfortable custom furniture, with rich, often patterned fabrics that are layered unpredictably, beautifully, and delightfully in each well-considered room. She’s brought in timeless decor that looks effortlessly curated, while evoking a nostalgic atmosphere. The hearth is made to look inviting with a mini collection of model tall ships, a Federalist style mirror, a cabinet painted in the antique Dutch style, and many more careful details that don’t draw attention to themselves but lend a deeply American sense of hospitality.

Home, Sweet Home

The lovingly restored house in Highland Park, Texas, that Kincaid currently lives in is a one-story, shingled cottage built in the post-World War I era, “one of the few houses of this style that’s left in this part of Dallas,” she said. She bought it in 2012 and, after restoring and renovating it, moved in two years later. Kincaid described it as a “very American” home. “It’s kind of a surprise. … And when you’re here, you don’t really feel like you’re in the middle of Dallas.” Its architectural features are more in common with a cottage in rural Connecticut than a Texas abode. In addition, it’s set away from the main road, surrounded by foliage that shields it from other properties. Classic topiary and potted orange trees greet guests outside the front door. Its shingled exterior with white trim and architectural details and its gaslight-like exterior light fixtures give off distinctly New England vibes.

She and fellow amateur historians of her neighborhood say it probably started out as a tiny, three-room caretakers’ cottage attached to the estate of one of Dallas’s most influential families. “[It has] gone through different incarnations to where now it’s a family home, and it’s quite desirable. I guess you could call it kind of a success story,” Kincaid said.

Kincaid’s collection of porcelain accentuates the cottage’s New England design. (Miguel Floes-Vianna)
The dining room is fitted with simple linen curtains to maximize its floor-to-ceiling windows. (Miguel Floes-Vianna)

Over the years, there were modern renovations: Plaster went onto the walls; less-than-beautiful features were added in the kitchen. Kincaid was passionate about preserving the historical features. Her restoration took it back a little “to where it would have been,” she said. “It’s more in keeping with the year it’s built and more in keeping with the style of the [original] house.” She also gave it some updates to better suit her tastes, and to match her beautiful personal collection of porcelain and paintings. “The ceilings in the living room are not tall. So to cheat the eye and maximize the floor-to-ceiling windows, we used short valances [decorative drapery] and simple, linen curtains. We also added transom windows [small window features that are placed above doorways] between the entry, living room, and dining room to add light.”

Her collection includes a stunning, hand-painted wall covering whose fairy-tale vistas wrap around the dining room. While not antique, it represents a series of important chapters in Kincaid’s life. Years prior, Kincaid bought a home that once belonged to renowned interior designer Nena Claiborne (before she bought the house, Kincaid once worked at a custom lamp shop and would deliver the goods to Claiborne’s residence). Claiborne had hand-painted this wall covering depicting tall ships and maritime scenes in a style popularized in Normandy, France, during the 1700s. It combines rich jewel tones with strong earthy colors and superbly plays the role these wall coverings were designed for: to wow visitors and be an impressive conversation piece.

A hand-painted wall covering by renowned interior designer Nena Claiborne. (Miguel Floes-Vianna)

The wall covering tells a delicious story, but not in the way one may think. One of the men in the scene originally had no head. According to Kincaid, the story goes that he was Claiborne’s ex-husband who cheated on her. She made him headless as penance. About 15 years after Kincaid moved into the house, a fire tore through the upstairs rooms and damaged the dining room where this canvas hung. But Kincaid salvaged the canvas and employed a team of craftsmen and artists to revive the artwork and rehang it in her new Texas home. During the process, it needed some retouching. One of the artists painted the man’s head back on, not knowing it hadn’t been there to begin with. “I walked in and went, oh my gosh, he’s been redeemed!” Kincaid said.

It’s a story that began generations ago, and it hasn’t reached its end. The day before her American Essence interview, Kincaid was blessed with a new grandchild. Only the heavens would know what new stories will be told in this home that’s celebrating its centennial anniversary (approximately) this year.

(Miguel Floes-Vianna)

Kincaid continues to be drawn to gorgeous restorations with stories behind them. She said working on old homes is “a completely different feel. I love working on new properties, too, but it’s fun to go into an old [home], especially one that hasn’t been changed, and see how you bring it up to speed but at the same time retain all of the charm that it has from the years past. Nothing can quite replace something that was done a long time ago.”

There’s a unique character to them, she said. “I love walking into a house and wondering, ‘What’s happened there? Who’s been [there]? Who’s lived there?’”

From January Issue, Volume 3

Categories
Entrepreneurs Features Giving Back Kindness in Action

‘Don’t Forget the Poor’

Children play outside their house in Colonia de Carton in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on July 8, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Sky Cross is a nonprofit, strictly volunteer-led charity organization that operates along the Texas–Mexico border. Its mission is to provide food, clothing, medicine, and first-aid supplies to impoverished children, families, and orphanages. The organization works closely with missionaries of various denominations who offer education to the poor, primarily in Mexico, in substandard villages called colonias, which lack basic living conditions such as running water, sewers, and electricity.

The organization was founded in 1995 by retired U.S. Air Force Col. Terry Bliquez and his wife, Kathy. David Young serves as the current president, having been a board member and mission pilot since 1998. Before that, Young worked for the Civil Air Patrol (part of the U.S. Air Force), another nonprofit organization, which performs search-and-rescue missions.

When Bliquez first discussed Sky Cross’s mission with Young, it sparked a keen interest. Young would often accompany Bliquez on aid missions to the U.S.–Mexico border to deliver clothing, medicine, and nonperishable food to the needy. Together, they flew multiple times to migrant centers and orphanages, such as those in Nuevo Progreso, Mexico, and Matamoros, which is across the river from Brownsville, Texas.

Young said Sky Cross used to dispense secondhand clothing as well, but those deliveries have slowed down exponentially due to the pandemic. The organization has, however, distributed about 15,000 masks and more than 600 gallons of hand sanitizer across the migrant communities it serves.

The Importance of Helping the Needy

David Young, president of Sky Cross, unloads boxes of masks from his aircraft in Eagle Pass, Texas, on July 8, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

“The primary purpose of Sky Cross is to help provide food for the needy people, the poor on the other side of the border—they’re very, very poor. Many of them come up to the border hoping to be able to come across, and they end up being in the colonias on the border, such as the one in Matamoros,” Young said.

Years ago, people in colonias such as Matamoros would dig holes in the ground, scavenge coverings for the holes, and live in the burrows. Young remembers “being over there one time and looking at what they had on a grill that they were cooking outside—it was fish heads that they had scrounged for,” he said. “I was amazed that people could even survive with that type of food.”

Sky Cross delivers nonperishable food in the form of beans, rice, cornflour, noodles, and more. “I feel like God has placed in my heart a love for the poor and for their plight,” Young said, after being asked why the mission at Sky Cross resonated with him so deeply. “It’s such a blessing to me personally to go out and be amongst these people and, with my resources, be able to help them live a better life.”

Young said that when he was growing up, his parents instilled in him a deep desire to dedicate time and effort to helping those in need. “My dad was a homebuilder, and he would donate his time to work around the church. He had me help paint the back end of a church building one time—it demanded stacking scaffolding because it was so tall. He and I donated our time and efforts to that when I was just a 14- or 15-year-old boy. My father enjoyed giving himself to the community, and that carried over to me.”

Making a Difference in the Lives of the Poor

Children play outside their home in Colonia de Carton in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on July 8, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Through donations, Sky Cross also helped the Matamoros colonia develop to a point when residents could build a school. To support efforts like this, the Mexican government will provide water and electricity once a school is built, in turn helping the colonia become a sustainable community.

Many children in poverty-stricken communities such as Matamoros suffer from malnutrition. According to Young, children’s hair will often show signs of this. “Normally it would be black, but they would have red streaks in their hair, which was showing that they were not getting good nutrition. With time, those red streaks went away,” he said. “It’s a blessing to be able to do that and witness that as time goes on.” For Young, results like these are important, highlighting the difference Sky Cross makes in the lives of needy children.

Young said that his time at the organization is completely voluntary. Nobody who works there is a paid staff member, and 100 percent of the donations go straight to helping the poor. Young’s personal assets, including airplanes, fuel, and other equipment, are also put to charitable use for the organization, transporting volunteers to the border.

Aside from filling his role as president at Sky Cross, Young serves as a board member for a school in northwestern Peru that has 200 students. Together with his wife and family, he also helps more than a dozen children at any given time along the Texas–Mexico border. The Youngs provide money each month to keep those children in school rather than out scavenging the dangerous fields in search of food and money.

“We sent a couple on to the university; one of them became a dentist and came back. They are now practicing within one of the colonias there in Mexico,” Young said.

Sky Cross helps upwards of 30,000 people each year. It has supported six orphanages and helped build clinics in several Mexican colonias along the Texas border, providing quick access to medical care for families in need. “We’ve built a school in Nuevo Progreso where they would train the women to sew and work on computers. We have seen the results of that, to where the people will get out of the cycle of poverty and actually begin to have the skills to go out and earn a living,” Young said.

Physically Poor but Spiritually Rich

Through his time volunteering for Sky Cross, Young has learned many important life lessons—especially about how the needy can find happiness in the midst of their poverty. “The children are especially amazing to me. They can take a simple ball and have fun with that and laugh and enjoy life because they don’t want anything else. And what spoke to me is that some of the things we take for granted in our own society are more precious to them,” Young said.

“What I have learned in doing what I do is that the poor will find joy, and have more faith in their poverty than a lot of people that have all the things they would want in life. We in America need to understand that even the poorest of us are probably richer than 95 percent of the world. We place too much emphasis on the material things in life and not enough on the spiritual.”

Categories
Features Giving Back

Locker Room Contest Leads Texas CEO to Help Michigan High School Students

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

When Travis Hollman launched the Locker Room Contest, inviting students to send videos of their outdated locker rooms, he had planned to gift the winning school only with new lockers. But when he saw the video tour of Beecher High School in Flint, Michigan, he was motivated to do much more.

“They had no plumbing, no doors on the bathroom stalls, no place to study, no recreation room, and no internet access,” Hollman said in an interview. “The school is so nice now. We’ve got heating, plumbing, doors on the bathroom stalls, and we’re finishing the rec room floor and putting in basketball nets.”

Hollman is the founder and CEO of Hollman in Irving, Texas, the leading manufacturer of team sports, fitness workspace, and custom lockers. Together with his colleague Daniel Gilbert, co-founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers, he spent $1.5 million on renovating the Flint, Michigan, school.

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

“I’ve always been pretty good about giving back, and when you meet these kids, you just get more motivated,” Hollman said. “If Beecher High School had been a public building, it would have been condemned, but because it was a school, it stayed open.”

Up until the 1960s, Flint, Michigan, had been one of the wealthiest cities in America, but the end of the industrial era and the automotive boom ended in urban decay, urban flight, and water contamination. “Flint has one of the highest crime rates because they’ve got no police funding,” Hollman said. “Property valuations have come down so much.”

“There is supposedly this racial divide in America, and Beecher High School is 100 percent African American,” Hollman said. “I wanted to prove to those kids that there is no divide. It’s the media making that up. We still love everybody. We saw on the video that the school was in bad shape. There was no heating, and the showers didn’t work. What mattered was that they were students at a school in need.”

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

The Locker Room Contest is part of Hollman’s Higher Education and Learning Program (HELP), which is a division of the Hollman Family Foundation.

Although COVID-19 made it a challenge to travel to the school and oversee progress, Hollman said he’s proud that the commitment was maintained. “The cost of wood increased, and the price of gasoline has almost doubled,” he said. “All that stuff impacts our business, and it also impacts our giving. If it costs 20 percent more to build in raw materials and it costs 30 percent to 40 percent more to ship the product, it gives us less that we can do.”

Hollman sits on the executive boards of a domestic violence charity as well as Big Brothers Big Sisters, and his wife, Stephanie Hollman, is the star of the Bravo TV reality episodic “The Real Housewives of Dallas.”

“My wife and I decided we had to help,” Hollman said. “We just want the students to have a little bit better life and to keep those kids off the street.” Because of the renovations, Hollman said the school has become a favorite place for Beecher students, who are staying at school until 10 o’clock at night. “If just one doesn’t die from a gunshot wound because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it’s a win.”

(Courtesy of Hollman Helps)

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.

Categories
Features Giving Back

Former Homeless Singer Launches Dallas Nonprofit to Assist the Unsheltered

Owens at an event she hosted with two clients she assisted. (Courtesy of LeTitia Owens)

When LeTitia Owens relocated to Atlanta, she thought it was to pursue a singing career. Instead, she unexpectedly became homeless and began living out of her car. “Because I was in my car, I had a certain calm about it,” Owens said. “I knew I could lock my car doors at night and feel secure but I would see families on the street and wonder how can they deal mentally with not having a secure place to sleep at night?”

The experience, which lasted three months, opened her eyes to a world she hadn’t previously noticed.

“I’m looking out of the windows of my car, seeing people pushing baskets and carrying a backpack or a trash bag full of their belongings,” Owens said in an interview. “I wondered what they were doing out at 3 and 4 in the morning not realizing that I was in the same situation except I had a car to sleep in.”

The singer-songwriter began cultivating relationships with other homeless people in order to learn how to survive.

“I felt that as long as my things were with me in my car, I didn’t mentally feel like I was in a negative situation but of course I was trying to figure out what my day-to-day was going to look like,” she said.
When it came time to shower, Owens disclosed that she would befriend people and ask to use their bathroom.

“Once they let me in, I would tell them that I needed to take a shower or I would go to the YMCA or different gyms,” she said. “I found ways to make a shower happen but it’s a tough situation to be in overall.”

Eventually, a friend offered her a couch to sleep on and from there she moved back to Dallas for a job.”

“It’s an extreme measure to move into a shelter and it’s usually because they’re not so nice,” she said. “They don’t have a warm feeling. You don’t feel at home when you’re at a shelter with a bunch of people who are strangers.”

Owens was so touched by the unsheltered people she met on the streets that once she was back on her feet, she founded a nonprofit 501(3)(c) called Where Are You? Outreach (WAYO). Through WAYO, Owens invites the unsheltered to events she hosts twice a month where information about finding food, shelter, bathrooms and fuel are shared.

“We also provide food, clothing, toiletry items and a lot of my homeless men are shoeless, so I get their shoe size and provide them with shoes,” she said.

Last year, the singer-songwriter was nominated by Councilman Casey Thomas II to serve as vice chair on the Citizen Homeless Commission for the City of Dallas.

“It is a volunteer position that takes up about six hours a week,” she said. “You just have to have a heart for those that you’re serving. We have different Zoom calls that we get together on sometimes two or three times a month.”

On August 21, Owens will be giving away housing vouchers for temporary housing in apartments and hotels along with Dallas Councilman Tennell Atkins from District 8.

Recently, according to media reports, the city of Dallas received $21 million in federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, and Owens is applying for funding from that pool to acquire a building that would create housing exclusively for African American men who make up the largest homelessness demographic nationwide.

“If we could help homeless Black men, we could help lower the number of homeless people overall,” she said. “It’s usually having to do with getting jobs and just having an income to provide for themselves.”

Owens with volunteers and a few clients she is assisting.(Courtesy of LeTitia Owens)

About 30 percent of homeless black men are military veterans, according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

“One of the things that the Citizen Homeless Commission is able to do is assist with recommending who should receive funding because there are so many areas that don’t necessarily get the support they need,” Owens said.

The WAYO office is currently at 5057 Keller Springs Road in Addison but the headquarters will soon be relocating to a larger space in the Jacksonville area so that Owens can offer more services on site to people who are experiencing homelessness.

“I want to be able to provide resources on a regular basis because right now I have to do pop-up shops at different organizations, parking lots and churches,” she added.

To donate, visit the Where are You? Outreach for Homeless website (WhereAreYouOutreach.org).

“I rent chairs, tables, provide food and if I’m not able to get these resources from my sponsors, then I have to buy all those things,” she said. “It adds up.”

Owens with volunteers at an event she hosts twice a month. (Courtesy of LeTitia Owens)

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.