Dany Williams values connection. For her, that comes in offering free haircuts to those who are homeless in her community. She recognizes the loneliness that the men and women who sit in her chair may be facing, and so she does what she can to make that human contact meaningful.
"I handle them and I deal with them like they're my family, because they are."
Video Transcript
Meet Dany Williams: hair stylist
(Dany cuts a man’s hair with an electric razor)
Dany Williams: I just — I handle them and I deal with them like they're my family, because they are. I'm that one person that's gonna touch them and give them some exchange of human contact.
Dany offers free haircuts to people who are homeless.
(A man walks in for a haircut.)
Come on in, honey.
You come in here, and you get one of the best haircuts you've ever had.
(A man with a fresh haircut smiles.)
You have this asset now. You leave here with some asset. I hope that they would go out, find the job, find the respect, take care of the family, and move on. There is so much loneliness, and at the end of the day, they just want to go home with their family. And that's what I wish for them because I go home to mine, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
(Dany walks down the street.)
Man: Are you gonna be there tomorrow?
Dany: I'll be there tomorrow. Thank you.
(Dany laughs.)
Dany: My mom is — she was mentally ill all her life. So she kinda — she was homeless. She died last year, last July, from a drug overdose. And she died right in the street, is where they found her.
(Dany looks through a photo album.)
Okay, so here's a picture of my dad. And then here's a picture of my mom. I feel like I'm in a time machine able to deal with my mom's spirit to some kind of way. Like, my mom didn't get this because I wasn't here to do it for her. So I feel like I'm connecting with her spirit to some way.
I don't know what brought me here — I know why I'm staying. So I'll take whatever comes with it. It's a lot. You know that there's nowhere for them to go. And sometimes just laying in my bed I can't stop thinking about some of the kids out there who just don't have a choice. Some people make choices and some people who don't make them, you know? This is the cards they've been dealt. Just having a mother who lived on the street like that, no one would come near her, wouldn't even shake her hand, or even give her a hug, or anything like that. And that's what I'm here for.
