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Trading Places

9/19/2014

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no matter how hard you try you can't do or have everything. you can't accomplish as much as you'd like to. in the world of homeless advocates and agencies often you can't accomplish anything close to enough. there are trade offs you must be willing to make and you must be willing to decide what those trade offs are. some are trade offs you shouldn't make but are forced to either for lack of time, lack of money or the unwillingness of the ones you are trying to help to accept the hand that you hold out.

i think people pleasers and approval junkies are the most prone to making trade offs they don't have to. personal gain, accolades and headlines are like smoke, they evaporate very quickly. awards turn to rust. headlines get relegated to google searches, personal gain soon is forgotten and overshadowed by the next headline. you have to come to the point where doing good and accomplishments for the homeless mean more than looking good or putting your organization into tomorrows headline. greatness and a real sense of accomplishment doesn't come from making headlines or public accolades. greatness comes from focusing on the task of trying to house the homeless and making a difference in the lives of men, women and children.

too many of us like to dabble around the edges of fighting homelessness and helping those who are less fortunate than we are. the problem with dabbling is that we never become good at reducing homelessness. we experiment with various programs and we are quick to join the crowd whenever the next big answer to homelessness comes along, often without really thinking it thru or considering whether it really could be the answer we've been looking for. it's true, if you're a young advocate or homeless agency employee you should indeed consider and explore new ideas and concepts. you should attempt to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are, what the capabilities and limitations of your organization are and use that knowledge. but as your time with the organization grows longer and you mature in your job, you must become more focused and aware of what's been tried in the past, what worked and what didn't work and the reasons for the success or failure. you should try to narrow your scope into what has been successful and what you feel could be successful and become tenacious with those concepts. you shouldn't be distracted by this years newest answer to homelessness or the latest sets of data that will bring about the end to homelessness....again. you will go far and have a much greater success if you are more single-minded and focused on those ideas that have a proven track record and just let the rest go. 

often this is the point where many of us become weary. as you work longer and accomplish more, it's often difficult to let go of the headlines, let go of the ideas that seem to appear daily and let someone else travel the very latest path to ending homelessness. that's why so many organizations and individuals never really reach the maximum potential we have to reducing homelssness significantly. we are so burdened with various ideas and programs that we fail to focus on the ones that we know will work and have had an impact in the fight on homelessness. we often give up what we have in order to gain what we don't and in the process lose ground. you must be willing to make concessions and often those concessions are passing on the latest fad and continuing to grind out our daily chore of helping the homeless in the best way we know how. 

money is important in the fight against homelessness. but people don't pay for average. i think one of the problems in the fight against homelessness is that we haven't made any significant inroads in reducing the number of homeless in the united states. the number fluctuates up and down, but the total number remains approximately the same. with the advent of social media people become much more aware. one of the things they are aware of is the seemingly ineffectiveness of homeless agencies, particularly on the federal level. if it's going to be worth spending money on, then we have to spend it wisely and in the most effective means possible. we can't shout that we've housed a particular number of people and not expect the public to figure out that we spent an inordinate amount of money doing it. with the amount of information available daily thru various sources we can't expect the public to not begin to wonder why the number of homeless in america hasn't been reduced despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars to do just that. they're not impressed by numbers that are merely acceptable. they don't want average.

most agencies and organizatons try to spend years doing the things the same way as they always have. if they've been successful there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. all they need to do now is move from successful to significant. i think instead of focusing on new plans or new programs or historically failed programs, we should examine some of the more successful agencies and missions and organizations and take a close look at how they operate. what do they do differently that makes them a success? what do they do and how do they do it? one of the great traps of working in a social service agency or homeless organization is not spending enough time considering true success and what the measurement of success is. in this case...the true measure is how many homeless did you place in a home and how many are left? don't be afraid to ask that question. success is not and should not be measured in how much your budget grew this year or how well known your organization is or how many headline grabbers you acquired this year. success is not a video or an article describing homelessness in a magazine. success is reaching the men and women on the street and providing housing for them while at the same time attempting to help them thru the issues that caused their homelessness. success is finding the mentally ill and giving them a safe place to live. success is being able to say we've reduced homelessness significantly, not explaining why it's increased again this year.

sure, by spending more time looking at past successes and organizations that have succeeded in housing the homeless in a cost efficient mannet you may lose out on the next headline, the next national convention or the next big answer, but it's a trade off you can't afford not to make. don't trade the lives of the homeless. 

see you around town




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The Battle For Our Children

9/15/2014

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there is a segment of the homeless population that should bring shame and a sense of guilt to everyone. people think of the homeless and they often think of people on the street or in missions and shelters. but there is another group of homeless.... children. that one word in itself when included in the same sentence as homeless should make even the harshest of critics of the homeless take pause. children lacking a stable home, or in alot of cases any home. pay a price at an age when noone should. it's takes its toll physically, emotionally and mentally. even with your strongest argument about welfare, entitlements or other support systems,  you can't possibly blame the children for being homeless. even with your most convincing set of reports and data you can't possibly categorize any of these children in your explanations of why people are homeless or the underlying causes. these are the innocent victims of our inability to solve the problems of homelessness and the poverty that often leads to being homeless. these young americans..children....some too young to comprehend why they don't have a home like their peers are victims of an america that has come to accept homelessness as part of modern culture. we are succeeding in indoctrinating and familiarizing a whole new generations to the struggles of poverty and the hardships of homelessness. 

in delaware there are approximately 5.000 children who face homelessness of one type or another. there are approximately 2 million nationwide. this doesn't include the number of children who fall into the group of 11.5 million illegal immigrants in this country. some live in hotels, some live in cars, some live in abandoned buildings, some live days at a time with relatives or friends of their parents, bouncing back and forth between beds. many of these children experience hunger on a daily basis. how can you justify or reason this away? you can't. i can't. noone reasonably can. these children are being introduced to the terrible aspects of life that adults shouldn't have to deal with. these children are experiencing insecurity and hardships that adults shouldn't have to endure. these children...these children in your state....these children in your community have no home...they have no security....they have no choice. these children are black, white, hispanic and asian. homelessness and poverty knows no racism, it shows no preference. it shows no compassion. it will claim its victims regardless of age or color or gender. it has no sympathy. it will attack you and leave its scars regardless of who you are or what age you happen to be.  it will consume them at an age when they are most vulnerable if we continue to let it. 

there are many arguments on and about the homeless. there are cases made for and against helping the homeless and the methodology to do so. there are ten year plans and planning councils and studies. there are budgets and finances and politics. but one thing is certain...a solution to the homeless children of america is a moral obligation we all have and should be a first priority. we should not jeopardize the future or lives of these children. housing first? this should be the one and only priority of housing first programs....children. every homeless program and every housing program in america should stop...right now...today and make them their priority. they should be ahead of the elderly, the mentally ill and yes....the beloved veterans programs. 

how can america even think it is a world leader when 2 million of its own children go to sleep at nite and wake up tomorrow...homeless? how can america speak of ethics and morals and courage when we let are youngest sleep on the street? how can we speak of the high principles of freedom and capitlism when every day 3 of our youngest die on the street...homeless. how can politicians speak of budgets and economies when young boys and girls are endangered each and every day and nite by a problem that could be and should be ended....now. how can churches convene on sundays and preach the virtues of religion and spirituality when blocks away from that same church children are walking ...with no home to go to? how can you tuck your own children in at nite and not feel a tinge of guilt and concern for these children? i hope you can't.  how can we as adults and parents and citizens ignore the needs of the most vulnerable sector of our society...our future...the ones we are suppose to teach, protect and guide until they can navigate this world on their own? if martin luther king jr were alive today he would be appalled that his vision and dream for america and its youngest has turned out to be the nitemare he fought to overcome. the nitemare of poverty and lack of caring and compassion for our children. we speak of wars and victims in todays world. this is a war on the next generation of our country. this is a war with potentially more victims than any war we have fought. this is a battle for the future of our country and the fundamental way of life that each person should have here in america. 

if no other battle is won in the fight against homelessness...this is one we cannot afford to lose. not only for their sake but for our own. if we foresake our children....then what is our future? if we can ignore homeless children and present no solution, no relief...for no other reason than they are our children...then what sort of country have we become? what sort of community have we become? wake up america...we are losing the best part of us....of each of us.


see you around town
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I May Be Homeless Forever

9/9/2014

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i am no longer houseless. i have had a roof over me for more than a couple of months now. i no longer worry about the rain. i no longer worry about the cold. i no longer choose to sleep inside or outside. i no longer walk the streets or spend time somewhere to pass the day. if i do, it's by my choice or the worry is for other people and not for myself. i'm one of the lucky ones who beat homelessness. believe me, i do indeed feel lucky.

in alot of ways though, i think i'll always be homeless. it will be something i carry around with me. i won't dwell on it, but i'll be aware of it. i'll always know how quickly it happened and how swiftly it descended upon me. i'll always know that it could happen again. i'll aways feel the pain and emotional upheaval that changing everything around me caused. i'll always be aware that my history and the feeling of who i am has been forever altered. i'll never be 100 per cent sure of anything again.

i'll never again have the confidence i once had in our economy, our system of governing and the way of life that i had to come to expect and take for granted. i'll never again think that jobs or the money earned from them is never going to end and if it does it can be replaced quickly and easily, as it always had been my entire life. i'll never be able to fully trust friends, family or anyone close to me and think i can turn to them or would turn to them in times of trouble. 

i think the most profound thing i'll have to carry around now is awareness. i can never walk down the street again and be oblivious to the poor, the homeless or those struggling to keep a home or food on the table. i can never be unaware of homeless children or those living in what we call poverty in the united states.  i can never again claim to not know what the homeless face and deal with every day. i can never again make excuses for homelessness in this country or the fact that we are failing to make any real headway in reducing it. i can never gain ignore the problems of families living in shelters and missions with young children. i can never again pretend it's not my problem. i can never again accept any excuse or reason for homelessness, from us or the homeless themselves. in alot of ways this is more painful to me than the fact that i was homeless. it will be a scar on my inner self that i will have to feel for the remainder of my life. it isn't going to fade or heal. it's going to remain there...waiting to be reopened.

yes...i'm no longer houseless. but i'm still homeless in alot more ways than i'd like to admit. for today i wait and watch. 

see you around town
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Simply  Compassion

9/5/2014

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wikipedia defines compassion as the emotion that one feels in response to the suffering of others that motivate a desire to help.

 i think coming to an understanding of yourself is one of the hardest things there is to do in life. it has been for me. something that has been one of the most difficult for me to understand about myself is my compassion...sometimes the lack of it....sometimes the depth of it....sometimes the overabundance of it. i've come to realize that i'm not a naturally compassionate person. it's not embedded in me as it seems to be in other people. i have to work at it and remain aware of the fact that i let life and all its distractions get in the way of being compassionate. i'm sympathetic, emphathetic, judgmental, rational for the most part, and have a knack for cutting to the core of an issue most of the time. those seem to come naturally and are a part of my reasoning process when i experience a problem or encounter a social issue. but compassion....it sometimes gets clouded and pushed to the side when i deal with things. 

i think homelessness is something you have to have a high degree of compassion for in order to begin to understand it or deal with. you have to be able to set aside all the numbers, facts and figures, data and research that's been accumulated and processed about the homeless. you have to be able to set aside the core causes and reasons that people are homeless and go straight to the human aspect of homelessness. i think that's one of the very basic reasons we haven't beaten homelessness or been able to reduce the number of homeless. we lack the very basic compassion to do it. you have to able to look past addictions to heroin, chronic alcoholism, gambling, domestic abuse, family abandonment, poor life choices and all the other things that cause or contribute to homelessness and look straight at the plight of the homeless themselves. you have to be able to see the pain, the suffering, the struggles and the emotional distress that being homeless causes and the impact it has on the individuals experiencing it. when you can do that, then you begin to understand why we should help the homeless and strive to end homelessness, regardless of the reasons and causes. it's the human aspect of it that should drive us and motivate us. it's the plight of our fellow human beings and the toll on them physically, mentally and emotionally that should guide us in our effort to bring about a resolution to a self complicated issue here in the united states.  

men, women and children who have no home. families struggling to stay together without shelter. teenagers struggling to find a way in life while having no roof over their head or anyone they feel cares about them. theses are the things that we should keep in mind when we think of the homeless and their situation. it cuts to the very basic moral compass of us as a country, as a state, as a community and as a human being. how we treat and how we attempt to deal with and come to a solution for the homeless reflects on us as a people. how we think of, how we help, how we remain aware of the homeless states volumes as to the condition of our society and country and its moral and ethical condition. every religion teaches we should help those of us weaker than ourselves, particularly the poor. i think every piece of moral code that has been passed to us from generation to generation has that bit of genetic information in it. 

awareness brings compassion that brings action. that's supposedly the process we take when we deal with a social or justice issue. if the chain slows down or stops at compassion, then the action taken will be the wrong one or for the wrong reasons. we need to begin to reduce homelessness and ease the burdens of those experiencing it. perhaps we need to begin to approach the solutions based on compassion for our fellow human beings and not from an economic standpoint. perhaps we need to start addressing homelessness strictly from a compassionate standpoint. i think then, if nothing else, we'll be fighting the good fight for all the right reasons.

see you around town
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