Our Three Basic Beliefs About Homelessness
Years ago when we first started working to serve the homeless we had three basic beliefs.
We believed:
1. We serve the needs of the community by assisting the homeless get a hand up on their journey from homelessness to stability.
2. Homelessness is a community problem. The community pays for the homeless in hidden expenses like emergency calls and responses, hospital expenses, local emergency shelter expenses, and more.
3. People who have been homeless should be empowered to strengthen their quality of the lives to reach their full potential.
We continue to believe these three basic beliefs.
Let’s unpack them a bit.
We serve the needs of the community by assisting the homeless get a hand up on their journey from homelessness to stability.
Communities are being inundated with homeless people. Reasons vary, but the end results is more people on the streets. A community can’t just wish they will go away or believe they are all from somewhere else. They are us. So, in finding ways to address homelessness by helping those on the streets to find ways to escape the “well of homelessness” and get off the streets we truly are serving the community as a whole.
Homelessness is a community problem. The community pays for the homeless in hidden expenses like emergency calls and responses, hospital expenses, local emergency shelter expenses, and more.
We can’t tell you how often we hear community people say when programs are suggested to address the homelessness challenge: “I don’t want my tax dollars going to serve the homeless.”
They don’t understand that to do nothing actually is costing more taxpayer dollars than creating an organized plan and program. We have proven getting people off the streets is financially and ethically the right thing to do.
People who have been homeless should be empowered to strengthen their quality of the lives to reach their full potential.
We can share countless stories of how a homeless program helps people move from being dependent on the resources of the community to become self-sufficient and independent from handouts. They become tax-paying community citizens and help the community to grow.