How It Can Happen
Have you ever thought about what it would be like for you and your family if you lost your home?
For many people, homelessness begins with a job loss or other family tragedy, such as a long-term illness. This can set off a common chain of events, often started by maxing out several credit cards. Then, as it becomes necessary to juggle bills, two or three go unpaid.
In these early months, it is easy for a family to postpone getting help, thinking that a good job or a big raise is just around the corner. Many times, optimism turns to despair before a family takes a realistic assessment of their financial situation. As debts begin mounting up, families can often reach a low point where it becomes impossible to cover the basic expenses such as child care and rent.
Some families end up in this place very quickly – within a few months. For others, it comes following months and months of struggle.
Take a few minutes and think about how a life-changing event would change your family and finances. Homelessness can happen to anyone.
Parker’s House is here for just this reason. When a family reaches this low point, they can move in for three months or six months to get back on their feet. Your support of Parker’s House provides a formerly homeless family with a safe and stable home to give them some space to recover from one of these major setbacks.
Together, we’re fighting homelessness … one family at a time.
Dignity
One of the common themes surrounding the homeless population is the loss of dignity that goes along with losing all possessions and becoming dependent upon the kindness of others. Well-meaning people, in our zeal to help, can actually perpetuate that feeling of the loss of dignity.
A while back, I offered to be responsible for the Christmas Angel Tree for our office. You know what that is – there is a Christmas Tree where the ornaments are cards containing descriptions of families who are in need. The family we selected was living in a shelter. The Father had a job, but they had lost their apartment. What they really needed was transportation and we helped them with that in addition to providing gifts for the children.
As I collected gifts from my coworkers, I explained how the system worked – I would deliver the gifts to Social Services, not to the family. I wouldn’t meet the family at all. One well-meaning co-worker said, “But I wanted to go with you to give the gifts directly to the family. I wanted to see the looks on their faces.”
All religious traditions agree that the reward for helping those in need is in the act of providing assistance. We who have been graced with the task of helping those who have less should remember that homelessness is not about us watching their gratitude. Homelessness is not about us at all. Homelessness is about the homeless. It’s about the pain, embarrassment and discouragement they are feeling. And it’s up to us as Christians to relieve these feelings.
Parker’s House was founded on the concept that residents deserve dignity and respect. No one will ever meet the residents without their knowledge and permission. They will never appear in photos on marketing materials. But I have the utmost confidence that as you support Parker’s House, you will experience the joy of giving – even without seeing the looks of gratitude on their faces.
Is Parker’s House a Handout?
I was listening to the radio recently and heard someone say handouts will never solve the problem of homelessness.
I agree.
Don’t get me wrong – handouts certainly help to supply short-term needs and are often critical for the everyday survival of homeless individuals and families. But resources beyond the daily necessities of living are required to help the homeless reach a state of long-term, sustainable independence. And it requires hard work and discipline on the part of those who want to break out of homelessness permanently. That’s where the Parker’s House program comes in.
Parker’s House provides a safe and stable home for a formerly homeless family. Residents provide the hard work and discipline. Residents of Parker’s House are required to a) complete a program of budget and financial counseling; b) maintain a realistic budget; c) build an emergency savings account; d) save enough money to pay for all of the deposits necessary for them to move to permanent housing.
The Parker’s House program is not easy. It requires effort, discipline and consistency – the goal being to develop the skills required to live independently of charitable and government assistance. This is what we call sustainable independence – the ability for a family to sustain a home, living on less than they earn.
Parker’s House is not a handout. It’s a helping hand – a helping hand to fight homelessness … one family at a time.
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To find out what some cities are doing during these tough economic times to give the homeless a break, click this link for an NPR interview with two leaders of very difference cities.
Why A Rubik’s Cube?
Someone asked me recently why a Rubik’s Cube was a part of the Parker’s House logo.
Have you seen the movie The Pursuit of Happyness? In it, Will Smith portrays Chris Gardner, a man who is forced into homelessness with his young son. In one powerful scene from the movie, Chris is in a cab with a man who holds the key to his future – only this man is more interested in solving a Rubik’s Cube than in helping Chris attain his dream. Chris realizes that in order to get noticed, he needs to solve the cube.
A man I know who is intimately familiar with homelessness once told me that being homeless was like having to solve a different Rubik’s Cube each day. While he was homeless, as soon as he woke up each day, he had to determine where he would stay that night, where he would find toilet facilities, where he would panhandle to earn enough money to eat for the day, if and when he could search for employment … the list of puzzles to solve was endless.
Solving these daily puzzles would be hard enough alone. Imagine the stress of not only having to solve them for yourself, but also for your children. Many of us may never face the difficulties of homelessness. We can, however, work to understand the problems of the people who live this reality. Along with an awareness of the issue, we can help alleviate some of the obstacles faced by the homeless.
Together, we can help make the daily Rubik’s Cube easier to solve … one family at a time.
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Click here to watch a 20/20 segment about Chris Gardner and his rise from homelessness to multi-millionaire.
Homelessness – Not about You or Me
We’ve all seen them – those men and women standing calmly at an intersection with a sign that says, “Homeless. Please Help. God Bless.” What do you do?
If your children are in the car, you may point to this person and say, “If you don’t bring your grades up, you’re going to end up right there beside him.”
Or, perhaps you are alone. You think for a moment. Another car pulls up behind you. You decide to continue looking ahead – no eye contact, no acknowledgment. As soon as the light turns green, you pull away, saying to yourself, “Thank God that’s not me”.
Or maybe you are on the way to a job interview or a big meeting. You hold up a couple of dollars in your hand and he shuffles over to take it from you. He says “God bless you” and you mumble something like “good luck” and roll up the window. You did your duty. Got some good karma. That’ll give you a boost with the Big Guy upstairs. It might even land you that job.
Sound familiar? It does to me. It’s easy to turn someone else’s suffering around and make it all about us. It stopped being about this person’s homelessness the moment they became an object lesson for us or our children. Or simply another way to get good karma.
Try this experiment. The next time you pull up beside one of these panhandlers, don’t think about how this affects you. Put yourself in his shoes. You don’t even have to give him any money. Just talk to him. Show him some respect and dignity. You may discover that he’s a lot like you – another regular Joe. He just happens to be down on his luck right now.
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Here is a link to a short NPR segment about a problem the homeless are facing in Phoenix – intense heat.
What Is a Transitional Shelter?
If you’ve seen our web site, you will see Parker’s House described as a “transitional home”. What exactly does that mean?
When a person or family loses their home, in most cases, they immediately look for an emergency homeless shelter. These programs take people from the street – whether they have been living in their cars, abandoned buildings/houses or any place they can find that looks reasonably safe – and provide them a warm, safe bed with toilet facilities.
A transitional home is somewhere between an emergency shelter and permanent housing. Parker’s House would probably never take anyone from the streets – we are neither staffed nor trained for such intensive intervention. Instead, we require that residents successfully complete a program at an emergency shelter before coming to Parker’s House.
Our goal is to provide a formerly homeless family with the time and tools needed to create sustainable independence – a term we use to describe when a person can move to permanent housing with a high probability of success, thus drastically reducing the chance of their returning to homelessness.
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CBS Evening News had a segment about a homeless woman, describing the process from homelessness to permanent housing. Here is a link to the story. It is a very effective video showing how easily it is to slip into homelessness.
Introduction
The Friends of Parker’s House is a loosely organized community of folks interested in sustaining the mission of Parker’s House – a transitional home for Durham, NC families in need of a safe and stable place to rebuild their lives following a period of homelessness.
In this blog, we’ll talk about homelessness, the problems associated with poverty and, most importantly, what’s currently happening with Parker’s House. Future blog posts will include topics such as types of shelters, resources for the homeless in the Triangle and how best to volunteer.
Thank you for your interest. With your help, Parker’s House will continue to evolve as a resource for families who need a place to get back on their feet.
