Everyone Needs A Family
Alan Graham, founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes the organization that created Community First! In Austin, Texas says homelessness is the result of a “profound, catastrophic loss of family.”
When meeting a homeless person and listening to his/her story this theory rings true. Too many have no blood family or at least no family that cares or communicates.
Somehow this has led to the person being on the streets with no ability or resources to escape. Often I have compared this to being stuck in a well with no way out. Once in the well, not matter how one got into it, he or she will need a “hand-up” to get out. It will be up to the person to do whatever needs to be done to stay out, but no way can getting out of homelessness be left up to the person stuck in it.
But, to the chagrin of many individuals and organizations working with the homeless, homeless individuals create a “street family” that they will not leave behind. In essence they will “fall” back into homelessness to be with their “family.”
We’ve all heard the sad stories of homeless housing programs that were created for and abandoned by the homeless. We scratch our heads why a homeless person barely existing on the streets will give up a nice apartment to return to the streets. It so often comes down to missing their street “family” and returning to them.
I discovered this firsthand when we built a tiny house village to be a transitional place for homeless individuals to be while they were putting the pieces in place for life outside the village. Case management helped them get back to school, find a job, restore identity and a list of valuable goals to allow the homeless individual to experience success in getting back into the flow of society.
But, we soon discovered those who ended up in the tiny house village created a type of “family” they didn’t want to leave when it was time to go. After six to nine months they’d rather stay in the 8x10 shed with no plumbing, heat or electricity than leave for a better place to live. They didn’t want to leave their “family” behind.
Veteran homeless programs have also learned it is much easier and successful to house a homeless vet in group housing than individual apartments.
What can be done?
Perhaps Community First! can be a good model. It isn’t created to be transitional. It is created to be home. Stay as long as you want. Be in a community or “family” and thrive. The ultimate goal isn’t moving to something better. The community is something better and becomes home.
There is need in a local continuum of care for multiple stages of serving the homeless. Yes, there needs to be emergency shelters to keep individuals alive and safe. Yes, there needs to be tiny house villages, group homes for people in recovery, apartments for misplaced family, but, perhaps a wise move is to create a more permanent place for homeless individuals with no blood family to create a life family. This may just be the ultimate goal for many…home.
By Chad McComas