Story at a glance

  • Running back Najee Harris was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers as the 24th pick in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft.
  • The University of Alabama graduate had an unstable childhood, moving often between periods of homelessness.
  • Ahead of the draft, Harris sponsored a party at a shelter he once lived at with his family.

Najee Harris changed in the parking lot of the homeless shelter that once housed him and his family ahead of the first night of the NFL draft, putting on the outfit he would wear to be drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers as a first round pick. 

 

The former University of Alabama running back sponsored a draft party for the kids now living at the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program homeless shelter in California's Bay area, stopping to take pictures with everyone — including the pizza delivery driver — local news outlets reported. 

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“Doing this really makes me and my family feel better, just giving appreciation and everything. It’s a subject, especially in the Bay Area, that needs to get shed light on. The more that we are together, the more we can make everything happen, especially in good ways. You know for me moving up I’m getting more attention, more cameras and stuff, that’s good. Because it’s shedding more light on the situation,” Harris told KRON4. 

 

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Harris and his four older siblings lived with their parents in a single room of the shelter for a time in 2010, later moving several times before he graduated from high school in 2017. All the while, the 23-year-old has stayed involved with the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program. 

"Just to see him as a grown man with this kind of opportunity for him today and to know that he lived in this shelter among many other places their family had to move around and lives as a homeless man just speaks to the anything is possible," Kathleen Sullivan, executive director of GRIP, told KGO. 

After he and his mother moved to Alabama, they’re now headed to the East Coast — but the West Coast native remembers his roots. 

"Whenever he is in town he comes back to visit the school, to visit the staff and talk with students. He is someone who values who have been there for him. That's what I love about him," Louie Rocha, principal of Antioch High School, told KTVU about the school's alumnus. 

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Published on Apr 30, 2021