Just under a month ago, Hope the Mission Founder and CEO Ken Craft and President Rowan Vansleve took off on their bikes from North Hills en route to the nation’s capital to raise awareness on the plight of the homeless. Currently, the pair are about halfway through their journey and are taking a rest stop in Oklahoma City.
Craft and Vansleve arrived in Oklahoma on Tuesday, April 9, cycling from Amarillo, Texas – 277 miles away. They will spend a week resting for the next leg of the trip, where they will travel to St. Louis, Missouri, and then Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before arriving at Washington, D.C on May 7.
The pair’s first day of the 3,500-mile trek was much shorter than the rest, a trip from Santa Monica to Los Angeles City Hall – biking 17.5 miles. They received a festive sendoff the second day on March 12 from Hope the Mission headquarters in North Hills; their journey is being documented by someone following them in a vehicle. Their first goal was to bike approximately 438 miles towards Phoenix, Arizona.
The nonprofit has been giving updates on the men’s progress through its Instagram account. The day they left their headquarters, the two had traveled 80.4 miles, followed by a 70-mile journey to Palm Springs on the third day.
The fourth day is when they began to encounter some difficulties, as they had to maneuver through harsh winds and a broken bridge. Still, they made good progress at 73.3 miles. The fifth day was harsher, as the rain battered the pair and they had to stop to warm themselves up. Despite the setback, they pedaled a remarkable 78.8 miles.
On the sixth day, Craft and Vansleve biked 100 miles, but they unfortunately took a wrong turn along the way, traveling down a very bumpy road. They had a slow start on the eighth day, having to fix a flat tire and getting questioned by a police officer on what they were doing; they pedaled 40 miles that day.
The pair biked 66 miles over the next two days and another 75 miles on day 11, when the chain on Craft’s bike snapped. Vansleve told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol that Craft caught pneumonia around this time and had to take a few days off to recover, but he’s since healed up on back on his bike.
Dubbed “Cycle to the Capitol. Understanding Homelessness from Coast to Coast,” Craft and Vansleve are undertaking this journey to fundraise for a new sobriety shelter for women. Their goal is to raise $350,000 for the shelter and another $350,000 for services. Those who want to support their endeavor can sponsor a mile with $100 through the nonprofit’s website. As of press time, the nonprofit has raised more than $359,000.
Once they reach the capital, Craft and Vansleve plan to meet with senators and congressmembers from across the country, as well as officials from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Along the way, they will be making stops at major cities to put a spotlight on the homeless and the programs serving them. Craft and Vansleve are collecting their stories to be used in a documentary to explore what is and isn’t working in those areas of the country.
“As we’ve taken this journey, we’ve seen in every big city, small town, even a truckstop that homelessness is no longer an LA problem, but a national crisis,” Vansleve said. “As we ride, our hearts are broken [with] people languishing on our streets, but we are filled with excitement and hope for the future as we visit organizations that are meeting the need.”
This isn’t the first time Craft and Vansleve have undertaken a trek to increase homelessness awareness. Last summer, they rode their bikes 350 miles from LA to Sacramento to support the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, which streamlines the building process for churches and some colleges. Later that year, they ran from Las Vegas to LA to raise awareness of the homeless in Nevada and California.
Craft previously told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol, “We have come a long way as an agency, but we have a long way to go. We’ll do what we can to draw attention to this crisis. It’s easy to look at it for a moment and then look away and forget about it.”
To donate to the “Cycle to the Capitol” fundraiser, go to https://support.hopethemission.org/campaign/cycle-to-the-capitol/c550269.