Will Arvelo
Executive Director of Cross Roads House
Will Arvelo has a particular commitment to homeless people because he was once among them. In NH, Arvelo is known as the former director of the state Division of Economic Development, past president of Great Bay Community College, and current executive director of Cross Roads House in Portsmouth. But he once lived on the streets in Arizona.
In the 1980s, he lived on the streets for two months. “Because of that experience, I could strongly identify with what [homeless] people deal with both physically and mentally,” he says.
Cross Roads House typically houses just over 100 people at a time and has helped as many as 135 find stable housing each year in the Seacoast area. “Everybody’s going through their crisis, their challenges, their trauma. If you sit down and get to know them, they’re just people. They’re human beings just going through more at that point in time,” Arvelo says.
Arvelo grew up “very poor” in Puerto Rico before his family moved to Harlem, and he witnessed “a lot of poverty,” he says. “What poor people go through and their struggles—that has always driven me.” He says the challenges of homelessness are shifting as more elderly people and working poor become “economic refugees.”
Arvelo also helped found and chairs the Business Alliance for People of Color, which advocates and provides resources for minority-owned businesses in the state.
Current Issue - May 2024