I'm Ira and I finally got out of 13 years of on-and-off homelessness by graduating Lambda School.

The homelessness started in high school for me. My parents have a very intense and strict ideology to which they adhere, and I'm trans. And so that's just not acceptable in my family.

Life before Lambda School was just constantly figuring out where I live next, I was so afraid of not being smart enough, and what failing at Lambda School would mean for me. So when I saw bugs in my homework, or mistakes in the assessments, I didn't see those things, I saw future me homeless.

And so it was really hard for me in the beginning. It was because of the community that Lambda School provides that I was able to move past that little by little. It was in part because of the diversity in Lambda's instruction and staff. It was the first time I ever had a teacher who was also trans.

What Lambda School taught me was how to build my own confidence. I learned to observe myself the way I observe code and to kind of hone in on pieces of the process where there's friction and fiddle with that individual thing, instead of just asking over and over what's wrong with me.

Being here really changed my life in a lot of ways and I'm really, really grateful.