mika
Still Wondering
My normal post of the Morning Reads was delayed today. I was called into cover an overnight shift at the shelter last night. Each June and December I volunteer at a small overflow homeless shelter. I have reached a volunteer seniority which allowed me to be the on call person this year.
Our guests have never been the stereotype homeless because our program focuses on providing shelter housing for families. We had 15 guests last night consisting of children, women and men that made up four families. Only one was a single parent family while three of the families were traditional married two parent families. This monthÔÇÖs guests are unusual even in my years of experience with the shelter.
I have never taken my laptop to the shelter in the past. Last night I would have fit right in if I had. I arrived for the overnight and found children playing supervised by the evening volunteers while their parents watched a movie as they updated their resumes and previously downloaded job applications on their own personal lap tops. Every family had at least one adult that had post secondary education of some level. There were two four year degrees a swath of technical/trade school graduates and one mom who was taking her turn at a degree after putting her husband through his program. The lap tops they had were part of the fabric of their lives before they became homeless and are being used as tools to return themselves and their families to a normal life.
Clearly this is not what we would think of when we think of the homeless. These are clean cut hard working families working to take themselves up the ladder of American success. Each family has their story of how changes in their lives and the lives of their traditional family support structure had changed and with surprising speed had landed them in our shelter starting over.
Even though this is a very different group than I have worked with in the past they share two issues with their predecessors: day care and transportation.
Day Care:
These four families had children ranging from 5 to 16 years old. Care or lack of care for the children was a major contributor to the downward spiral to their lives. They are families with parents committed to the care of their children. Talk of the past years school achievements or where they would be sending the soon to be kindergarteners this coming year dotted conversations.
I have no magic wand. I have not come up with any brilliant solutions to the issue. Day care for children can be addressed in two broad ways. The first is to do nothing and continue on as we have and are now. The second is to take this issue on as a national priority. To do nothing is not the cheap way that many think. We will pay for our lack of support in families in many ways that far outstrip the price of addressing the issue. I choose the latter approach. We will have to act locally to meet immediate needs and develop good ways of dealing with the issue for all children. As we do that we must make it a national issue.
Transportation
This is an unusual group in this area also. All of the families had recently owned cars. Three had sold their vehicle to try and make ends meet; one had parked their car until they could afford gas and insurance. Not your normal homeless group I suspect.
All were dealing with public transportation and becoming frustrated. They could find jobs to apply and even obtain but they could not get the work because public transport did not go to that area or did not serve that area at the time job would require.
Public transportation is expensive for many communities. Therefore it is easy to cut or support expansion to systems to meet existing and changing needs. In the cost benefit analysis I have not identified a way to add the people I am working with into the equation. Transportation is a key issue in getting these people back on track in their lives. In this case it is the lack of transportation to the areas where the jobs they a qualified for are. We need to find ways to identify and include the hidden costs of not funding to arrive at a better picture as we do any cost benefit analysis of public transport.
I urge you to support sensible public transportation programs. They have great benefits to the commuter. They have environmentally friendly. Finally they are a key portion of addressing returning many of the homeless back into being boring normal functioning people in our society.
I am not Catholic. However; as a child in Madison WI I watched show with a Catholic Cardinal that was on just before the morning cartoons. His recurring message was for each of us to light one candle and the world would be a brighter place. In my life I have taken that to mean that I should pick up a share of helping, I did not have to be the leader but I needed to pick up my share how ever little it may be.
I urge you to do that in the BMW MOA because we are a bottom up member driven association. I urge you to consider supporting the efforts to deal with homeless issues especially day care for children and transportation. Some of you will have solutions, some will be leaders, and all of us have a share no matter how small that I urge you to pick up.
Our guests have never been the stereotype homeless because our program focuses on providing shelter housing for families. We had 15 guests last night consisting of children, women and men that made up four families. Only one was a single parent family while three of the families were traditional married two parent families. This monthÔÇÖs guests are unusual even in my years of experience with the shelter.
I have never taken my laptop to the shelter in the past. Last night I would have fit right in if I had. I arrived for the overnight and found children playing supervised by the evening volunteers while their parents watched a movie as they updated their resumes and previously downloaded job applications on their own personal lap tops. Every family had at least one adult that had post secondary education of some level. There were two four year degrees a swath of technical/trade school graduates and one mom who was taking her turn at a degree after putting her husband through his program. The lap tops they had were part of the fabric of their lives before they became homeless and are being used as tools to return themselves and their families to a normal life.
Clearly this is not what we would think of when we think of the homeless. These are clean cut hard working families working to take themselves up the ladder of American success. Each family has their story of how changes in their lives and the lives of their traditional family support structure had changed and with surprising speed had landed them in our shelter starting over.
Even though this is a very different group than I have worked with in the past they share two issues with their predecessors: day care and transportation.
Day Care:
These four families had children ranging from 5 to 16 years old. Care or lack of care for the children was a major contributor to the downward spiral to their lives. They are families with parents committed to the care of their children. Talk of the past years school achievements or where they would be sending the soon to be kindergarteners this coming year dotted conversations.
I have no magic wand. I have not come up with any brilliant solutions to the issue. Day care for children can be addressed in two broad ways. The first is to do nothing and continue on as we have and are now. The second is to take this issue on as a national priority. To do nothing is not the cheap way that many think. We will pay for our lack of support in families in many ways that far outstrip the price of addressing the issue. I choose the latter approach. We will have to act locally to meet immediate needs and develop good ways of dealing with the issue for all children. As we do that we must make it a national issue.
Transportation
This is an unusual group in this area also. All of the families had recently owned cars. Three had sold their vehicle to try and make ends meet; one had parked their car until they could afford gas and insurance. Not your normal homeless group I suspect.
All were dealing with public transportation and becoming frustrated. They could find jobs to apply and even obtain but they could not get the work because public transport did not go to that area or did not serve that area at the time job would require.
Public transportation is expensive for many communities. Therefore it is easy to cut or support expansion to systems to meet existing and changing needs. In the cost benefit analysis I have not identified a way to add the people I am working with into the equation. Transportation is a key issue in getting these people back on track in their lives. In this case it is the lack of transportation to the areas where the jobs they a qualified for are. We need to find ways to identify and include the hidden costs of not funding to arrive at a better picture as we do any cost benefit analysis of public transport.
I urge you to support sensible public transportation programs. They have great benefits to the commuter. They have environmentally friendly. Finally they are a key portion of addressing returning many of the homeless back into being boring normal functioning people in our society.
I am not Catholic. However; as a child in Madison WI I watched show with a Catholic Cardinal that was on just before the morning cartoons. His recurring message was for each of us to light one candle and the world would be a brighter place. In my life I have taken that to mean that I should pick up a share of helping, I did not have to be the leader but I needed to pick up my share how ever little it may be.
I urge you to do that in the BMW MOA because we are a bottom up member driven association. I urge you to consider supporting the efforts to deal with homeless issues especially day care for children and transportation. Some of you will have solutions, some will be leaders, and all of us have a share no matter how small that I urge you to pick up.
