\u201cLove yourself enough to know this is just a setback for a greater comeback.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This is what Karlene Maxwell-Williams said to herself when she was 18, newly arrived to New York from Jamaica with her newborn son, and then kicked to the streets of Harlem by her mother. This is what Williams said to herself as she arrived in Miami a week later with little money, staying at a women’s shelter, researching with determination what she could do next.<\/span><\/p>\n And as of November, this is what now Commissioner Maxwell-Williams says to those who are lost or homeless now, and, even still, to herself.<\/span><\/p>\n A Florida Supreme Court certified legal mediator, Maxwell-Williams \u201calways wanted to be a judge. Wanted to sit on the bench and do my thing,\u201d she says. She wanted something in the legal field, but marriage and children put the idea of being a judge to the side, so mediator it was \u2014 working divorce cases, immigration cases, child support, and more as well as working at the Florida Department of Revenue for 15 years. Eventually she decided she wanted to do even more, and ran for City Commissioner in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n She lost in 2018 running for seat 2, but \u201conce I say I\u2019m going to do it though, I\u2019m going to do it,\u201d Maxwell-Williams says \u2014 and she did, beating incumbent Sandra Davey for seat 4 this past election. But before becoming Commissioner, before being a mediator, before helping others, she was a new immigrant in the United States \u2014 and then homeless.<\/span><\/p>\n Born in Kingston, Jamaica 1969, Maxwell-Williams immigrated to the United States at 18. \u201cOn the island your parents always leave you to go to America to make a better life for you,\u201d she explains \u2014 her mother having left her at 12 years old. And so, she was destined to eventually join her mother in Harlem, Manhattan.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, her mother\u2019s plans were not the same as hers when she arrived, and it \u201conly took six months for things to go left,\u201d according to Maxwell-Williams. Even then she wanted to work in law, but Maxwell-Willams says her mother wanted her to work in home healthcare like other Jamaican women around. One night, the arguing progressed far enough that her mother told her to get out.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe waited at the door for me to pack my stuff and leave. I remember she asked for my keys so I threw them at her and left,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThe way she treated me makes me do better for myself now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n From then on, \u201cI focused on what I needed to do for myself and did it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That first night she stayed with a Puerto Rican woman who would babysit her young son she brought with her from Jamaica. The woman lived on the same floor as her mother, and with only one elevator, she would still see her \u2014 but her mother wouldn\u2019t speak to her.<\/span><\/p>\n After a few days the woman said she couldn’t stay any longer, so Maxwell-Willams sent her son back to Jamaica to his father and \u201cwent to Grand Central Station to take a train to somewhere.\u201d She found a bench, somewhere comfortable, and sat. As time went by, people would sit and she\u2019d strike up a conversation, asking about good places to go where you can easily visit Jamaica \u2014 she wanted to be close to her son any way she could.<\/span><\/p>\n They all said Florida, and so she took an Amtrak straight to the end of the line to Miami. When I asked what she was thinking, how she felt, she said, \u201cI wasn\u2019t focusing on what was around me, just me. I knew that I deserved better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Maxwell-Willams wanted to save the small amount of money she had from little jobs at McDonald\u2019s, Macy’s, and Bloomingdale’s back in New York and not waste it on hotels, so she stayed at a women’s shelter in Miami for a couple weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe shelter experience isn\u2019t very good,\u201d Maxwell-Willams says thinking back. \u201cYou have a bed, but there was one woman who had AIDS, someone else with a mental illness. You have to make sure you protect the little valuables you have. You couldn\u2019t just leave your bag and go down the street and back, it would all be gone. You had to be constantly walking with your bag, up and down the street. It\u2019s rough. You need to love yourself and know you deserve better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But she was never without determination: \u201cEvery time I got somewhere I asked questions. I like to do research, ask questions.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And the answer to her questions of what to do seemed to be Job Corps \u2014 a voluntary, free-of-charge, government-run vocational training program. Unsure of what job skills to pick, she went with secretarial job training in Mississippi. She laughs now, but says \u201cin Jamaica you don\u2019t know what racism is,\u201d and during that program she saw it.<\/span><\/p>\n But after the program, she was accepted to Bauder College in Ft. Lauderdale, paid tuition with her money from Job Corps and financial aid, was able to live on campus \u2014 further solving her housing concern \u2014 and received her associate degree in travel and tourism. Not long after she bought her first condo \u2014 the address of which she can still recite from heart \u2014 and eventually received her bachelor\u2019s degree in management at University of Phoenix.<\/span><\/p>\n Over the years since, she\u2019s made her own business \u2014 Maxwell Mediation and Maxwell Solutions, doing legal paperwork for immigration, marriages, divorces, child support \u2014 started a citizenship drive to pay for immigration paperwork and other expenses, and, of course, became a City Commissioner of Lauderdale Lakes, Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAll this ties into not being homeless,\u201d says Maxwell-Willams. \u201cNot having a green card, can\u2019t get a good job, running into immigration issues…and when you\u2019re here as an immigrant, without money, you might not know the laws.\u201d Once they become a citizen, she continues, they can apply to bring family over, live and work as a family, get a job, and keep each other afloat.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey all tie in to helping people not become homeless.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She certainly wants to make changes to help the homeless as City Commissioner she says, laughing, \u201cbut I just got sworn in…so I don\u2019t know what is really there yet. I of course want to. It\u2019s a subject very close to my heart.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Making a point about the type of people who could be homeless and need help, she points to herself: \u201cIt\u2019s not just a person who\u2019s dirty pushing a cart, it\u2019s regular people, like me.\u201d She\u2019s looked at abandoned buildings that could be renovated as shelters, she\u2019s gone out into the town with masks for those on the streets, and food too.<\/span><\/p>\n Asking about her future, she says, \u201cI\u2019m not a politician, I\u2019m a woman in politics.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When further talking about helping people now, she speaks about the individual: \u201cYou can\u2019t really help anyone, it\u2019s up to the individual to do the work. It requires work. Everything in life requires hard work.\u201d She also stresses to ask questions, saying, \u201cSome people just don\u2019t ask questions. Don\u2019t be afraid to ask, the dumbest question is one you don\u2019t ask. And don\u2019t be so proud, ask for help.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And so, her advice to those who may still be on the street, or need help to stay off it: \u201cDon\u2019t give up obviously. Don\u2019t let your past control your future. Do your research, this is a better life for you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLove yourself enough to know this is just a setback for a greater comeback.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pressed to the streets of New York at 18 and new to the United States, Karlene Maxwell-Williams builds herself up, helping herself and many others in Lauderdale Lakes,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[550,549],"tags":[652,121,157,650,648,651,649,200,620,653,278],"class_list":["post-7222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-city-commissioner","tag-florida","tag-homelessness","tag-jamaica","tag-karlene","tag-lauderdale-lakes","tag-maxwell-williams","tag-miami","tag-new-york","tag-politician","tag-shelter"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\u201cEvery time I got somewhere I asked questions. I like to do research, ask questions.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n