Welcome to Jeremiah Transitional Center

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 I’m Michelle Smith.
Before there was a program… before there was a vision… there was just me trying to survive.
I was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison. That season didn’t just take time from me—it forced me to sit with myself, my choices, and the life I had been living.
When I came home in 2019, I knew one thing—I couldn’t go back to the same life and expect something different.
So I started rebuilding.
In Atlanta, I created God’s Helping Hand Cleaning Service. Not because it was glamorous, but because it was honest. It gave me something to stand on when I didn’t have much else.
But life didn’t get easy.
In 2022, I came back to Kalamazoo—and I came back with nothing. I was homeless. On top of that, my body was breaking down. I had already gone through one hip replacement, needed another one, and a knee replacement. I couldn’t move like I used to. I couldn’t work like I used to.
And at the same time, I was taking care of my mother as she battled dementia and Alzheimer’s.
I was trying to hold everything together… while falling apart myself.
But even in that, God placed people in my path.
I was given an opportunity to volunteer. I took it. That turned into contract work, and eventually into a position. I became an Administrative Assistant and the Resource Navigator—helping people find housing, keep their lights on, get food, and survive day to day.
The same things I once needed… I was now helping others find.
But the truth is—helping people doesn’t mean you’re healed.
Pressure has a way of exposing what’s still broken.
And I’m not going to sugarcoat it—I slipped. I tried to carry everything on my own. I went back to what I knew. And one thing led to another… and I got caught up.
That moment could’ve taken me out.
Instead—it woke me up.
That’s when I stopped running.
That’s when I got honest.
That’s when I surrendered for real.
And that’s when God gave me the vision for Jeremiah.
Not a program.
Not just a house.
A place for people like me.
People coming out of incarceration.
People fighting addiction.
People who lost everything and don’t know how to start again.
Jeremiah was built from lived experience—not theory.
At the same time, I brought my cleaning business back to Kalamazoo. Because I knew something most people don’t talk about:
You can’t rebuild your life without opportunity.
So Jeremiah is not just about housing—it’s about structure, accountability, and creating real pathways forward. Employment included.
And my book, “Black Girls Lost in the Zoo,” is a part of that same truth.
It tells the real story. Not the polished version. The truth about how I got here, what I survived, and what it really takes to change.
Because people don’t need perfect stories.
They need real ones.
Everything I’m building is connected.
Not because I planned it that way…
but because God allowed it to come together that way.
And at the center of it all is this:
I don’t help people because it sounds good.
I help people because I know what it feels like to have nobody.
This isn’t just work for me.
This is purpose.