Why It Is Important To Move The Homeless Towards Self-Sufficiency

There is an old saying: “Feed a person a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a person to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” 

A successful homeless program will not exist to warehouse the homeless, but to move them forward to self-sufficiency. This means they are leaving a subsidized life behind with all the hand-outs. To stay in poverty and be dependent on subsidies takes the heart out of people and traps their future.

Creating a program to not only house the homeless, but move them from being in crisis to thriving is a wonderful gift. As the homeless individual regains his/her dignity, learns skills, and finds opportunities to create their own steps towards self-sufficiency he/she is revitalized and begins to dream again.

We have seen many participants, who were afraid they couldn’t survive without subsidies, find jobs, go back to school, pay their bills, get involved in the community and find ways to give back to others who are trapped in homelessness. Families are also restored.

When a person becomes self-sufficient they no longer create a burden on the local community to financially take care of their needs.

This is far better in the long run than to just provide a cot and a hot meal day after day.

Our staff can work with any homeless program to find ways to create programs to help their participants move from dependency to self-sufficiency.