A Heart for Homeless
I woke up this morning grumpy and groggy as usual, stumbled into the kitchen turned on the so-called automatic coffee pot sat down and got on my fancy little IPad as I do every morning. I opened my CNN app and read "Family living in shed find a home" this caught my attention, I continued to read the article about this family of seven who had been living in a metal storage unit for about six months because of the families lack of money. I was crushed to hear that people let alone children were living in such conditions, I mean this is the U.S. not some third world country where we are conditioned to seeing this type of thing right? It made me stop and ponder how this could happen here in such a rich country? I continued to scroll through the story trying to grasp how a family of this size could end up living in a small tin can, literally.
Seems dad had lost his job at local bottling plant and had ran out of resources to pay the rent and the family was forced to either move into the 10x20 storage shed or live on the streets. After they had been living in the small shed few months it was brought to the attention of CPS by a local food stamp case worker. The children were removed until the family could provide a safe home for them. It breaks my heart to hear stories like this when we live in a country full of empty and abandoned homes.My first thought was how to bridge the gap between the homeless and the homes? On my block alone there are at least four boarded up homes that have signs saying "Banked Owned" and I know this is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the homes in foreclosure nationwide. There must be a way to help families in need get into these homes in one way or another. Some states have programs in place that help low income families qualify for financing, but what about those who have very little if no income? Where is the other side of the rainbow for them wondered?
I began to do some research and dig around a little. I found that there are shelters set up and rental placement services for families but the waiting lists were years out. I also found that shelters for whole families were few and far between. Many families had to be separated or even turned away due to lack of bed space, another heart breaker I man how can you separate children from their parents? I understand that with the economy the way it is that funding is down but in this case the funding is not necessarily the issue, it is that there are not many facilities that will take families in and ones that are usually fill up quickly. I can understand that housing an entire family can be more complex and it is much easier to take in individuals rather than a father, mother and child which brings me back to the issue of opening empty homes to families in need and how to bridge the gap between the two.
Shelters are great for temporary fixes and can help individuals tremendously but they are not enough to get a family off the street for good. There is much more to it than not having a home to live in, the question is what got the person there in the first place? Loss of job, income or is there drug addiction, alcoholism or mental illness involved? These are questions that must be addressed in order to get to the root of the problem. Identifying the cause will help determine if the family can be helped and put into permanent housing. This has often been a hard subject to address in families who's heads have addiction issues because many are not willing to admit that their drug problems have led them to a life of living on the streets and unfortunately children are the ones who suffer the most from the displacement. Once the issue has been dealt with these parents can get the help they need and the gap between the two begins to close.
Now what about the issue of empty and abandoned homes and how to get needy families into them. This has been the most frustrating thing to understand. I mean I'm not talking about just taking bums and placing them in mansions in the suburbs, I am talking about giving families who qualify a chance to get their children into permanent housing so that they can thrive and not just have to survive or worry about where they are gong to rest their heads at night. I actually took the time to contact some of the banks (which I won't mention names) that owned the abandoned places and I got everything from being laughed at to being hung up on. One bank actually referred me to a local shelter and another told me that they were a business not a charity and asked me not to contact them again. Needless to say I was back at square one until a friend had mentioned Habitat for Humanity a non-profit organization that helps place homeless family into homes. This was just the type of help organization I was looking for. I had heard about Habitat for Humanity before but I was not aware of just how much they do for the community as well. I was ecstatic to say the least and I wanted to be a part of what they were doing to help people.
I decided to contact the local chapter and set up an appointment to meet with someone so I could share my vision and get more information on volunteer opportunities. I met with Alice the volunteer coordinator, a wonderful lady who took the time to share how she got involved with Habitat over seven years ago. She told me that she and her three children had been living in a abuse shelter in downtown Phoenix for almost a year, she began to tear up as she continued to share how she would pray for a home for her and her children everyday. Her caseworker at the women shelter recommended her for the Habitat program and she was accepted and although it took almost six months for them to move in they were blessed with a brand new home built by volunteers form the ground up! The smile on her face said it all. She then went on to explain that she committed form that point on to helping displaced families find homes and she now volunteers along side her children every other weekend helping build or repair homes. I was so inspired by her story, here was a woman that shared the same vision as me. I was ready to commit and get my hands dirty!
Lending a hand is so easy, especially when I'm surrounded by others who have the same heart for people. I was able to find a way to bridge the gap and help families find homes and although the homes may not be empty and abandoned, most are built from the ground up. The faces on the children who now have a place to call home are priceless to me....
Works Cited
Habitat for Humanity Int'l. Web. 26 July 2011. <http://www.habitat.org/>.
