NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- On any given night in Nashville 4,000 people are homeless. While most of us don't know what that feels like, the loss of a job or your home could put you closer to homelessness than you think.

“I came from a drug-infested family. I guess I just had to fall in it, that was all I knew," said Rickey King.

King has lived a life full of challenges. “My mother passed away and me and my family wasn't getting along. My brother took all the money and I didn't have a place to go. He sold the house, so I was homeless,” said King.

He was left homeless and hopeless.

Debbie Grant recalled when she first met King a year ago at Project Homeless Connect. She said, “He was depressed. He had difficulty breathing, he had difficulty walking, and he really didn’t have a lot of hope that anything was going to change in his life,” Grant said.

But it did when King went to Project Homeless Connect at the Municipal Auditorium last year.

Clifton Harris with The Key Alliance said King told him, “’You know I want to get a job, but the line is long and its not going to make a difference at all anyways is it?’ and I said, 'Well, if you don't go to the table and ask, it certainly won't make a difference because you'll never get to know.'"

Harris connected King with someone from Goodwill and he's been working there ever since.

Grant certainly has noticed how King’s life has changed. She said, “It's just amazing what has happened to Rickey in the last year.”

He's held a steady job, his health has improved, and he just received good news this week.

“I just got approved to an apartment in Madison Towers and I got a doctors statement saying I could drive back and forth to work, keeping me from catching the bus for two hours,” King said.

However, if he never went to Project Homeless Connect last year, King said, “I'd still be homeless, but today I have hope. God is good!”

This year's event will be held Dec. 9 at the Municipal Auditorium on Fourth Street from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. They are still looking for 500 volunteers.

If you can help or would like to learn more about Project Homeless Connect, you can call 615-743-3189. Volunteers can sign up online at http://www.thekeyalliance.org.