Anthony D. Ross was homeless

At age 13, I lost my grandmother to heart disease who was the sole caretaker of me at the time, I never 

knew my dad, and my mother was a drug addict. After my grandmother died, my sisters and I were 

living in my mom's house with no water, heat, or electricity for months due to her drug use. We ran out 

of the house when she tried to murder us one night with a meat cleaver.

My sisters and I were separated when some of them joined their father’s side of the family while I 

ended up homeless sleeping in cars and homeless shelters in Washington, DC. My aunts on my mother’s 

side tried to take care of me but could not. One tried to hit me with a frying pan because she was 

always stressed out and the other was an alcoholic who threw my clothes out of her apartment and my 

birth certificate and social security card in my face. I then began living with strangers who were friends 

with my aunt. They were a family of 14 who lived in a two bedroom section 8 apartment in southeast 

Washington, DC. 

After living with them for 8 months, I was beat up and had to leave the house once I found out that 

they were getting food stamps and welfare benefits using my name. I had no choice but to go back to 

the homeless shelter. 

I always had to watch my back and protect myself in the shelter because different people would sleep 

in throughout the night. I wanted to go to high school so bad but could not because I needed to work 

two jobs to feed and clothe myself. I enrolled into a G.E.D. program at age 16 so that I can have time to 

work at Starbucks during the day and Ruby Tuesdays during the night and still go to school. After I 

earned my G.E.D., I stayed up until three and four in the morning teaching myself algebra, 

trigonometry, logarithms, functions, and geometry on the computer from watching YouTube videos 

and had tutors come out to the shelter to help me prepare for the SAT/ACT’s. In 2008, 

I applied to Saint Augustine’s University. I got accepted and spent 4-6 hours a day in the library studying ahead of the syllabi and earned a 4.0 GPA my freshmen year. Due to me being overlooked in the foster care system, my mentors and friends invited me over to spend the holidays with their families when the 

campus close down for holiday breaks.

I interned for the Mayor of Washington, DC, Adrian Fenty, where he and President Obama performed 

several initiatives together which I was able to see first-hand and was one of 15 homeless students in 

the United States chosen to attend a scholarship banquet on behalf of the National Association for the 

Education of Homeless Children and Youth to help draft a Homeless Youth Act to Congress before 

receiving awards from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. I began working for          Dr Cornel West at his Academy of Excellence to help mentor at-risk youth in grades 2nd-6th. 

I was inducted into the Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society and Pi Gamma Mu International Honor 

Society and have been on the President’s and Dean's List since freshmen year. Out of all political 

science majors at my University, I won the department award last year. I also interned for Wake 

County’s youngest appointed District Court Judge, Vince Rozier, where I learned the fundamentals of 

the Judicial System and how it operates. I served three years in the Student Government Association 

and was elected Student Body President of the college my junior year.

 I graduated with Great Honors (Magna Cum Laude) and in the top percentile of my graduating class.
Now attending Law School at North Carolina Central University.