Jobs Matter: Barriers to ending homelessness

By Constance Taylor, Employment Services Job Coach

The U.S. economy lost nearly six million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Kansas City alone lost nearly 70,000 jobs since 2007. Government estimates show that from August 2010 to August 2011, only the Atlanta area lost more than the 120,000 jobs lost in the Kansas City area. Both on a numerical and percentage basis, the area ranks second worst among the 127 major U.S. cities where employment shrank over the year.

In such a competitive environment, the difficulties of job-seeking as a homeless person can be almost insurmountable barriers.

For those with limited skills or experience, there aren’t many opportunities to find a job that pays a living wage.

All segments of the homeless population, especially heads of family households, face significant and multiple barriers to employment. These barriers are personal, programmatic, and systemic.

People who are homeless often lack stress management, social interaction, independent living and vocational engagement skills, as well as a place to live and financial resources. On top of that, many members of the homeless population have to combat barriers, such as limited transportation and reduced access to educational and training programs.

The digital divide remains a deep void for homeless populations. Competing for jobs today requires some understanding of and competency in information technology. Lack of computer knowledge and fear of failure can prevent these populations from seeking to use computers available through public access. These limitations contribute to poor labor market outcomes for homeless people.

To equip our formerly homeless clients to overcome their barriers, we provide job readiness classes and job coaching.  We work with each family to assess educational and vocational needs. And, we seek relationships with employers to establish a broad support system for the families we serve.

On the positive side, about 70% of adults are employed when they exit to their own homes. Less encouraging is that the average wage is $9.39 per hour. That’s an annual income of less than $20,000 a year.

Hopefully, the very low income population will soon share in the gradual improvement in the economy. 

Families Matter: Putting her children first

By Frenchie Pulluaim, Family Coach

One of our past residents stopped by the office to say hello and thank Community LINC for all of the assistance and support we gave her family.  Shauna and her 3 sons found a permanent home back in 2011.

Shauna came to us with a lot of barriers. She had few skills and fewer resources. She was under employed and lived with family in between short stays in her own apartment. Although she worked, it wasn’t enough to afford housing and provide for her boys. 

Shauna was a victim of generational drug abuse. She was living with her mom and grandma who are both substance abusers. Their lifestyle and influence contributed to Shauna’s lack of motivation and unwillingness to address issues that were keeping her from becoming self-sufficient. 

Entering this program gave Shauna and her boys stability, and the support system to break a generational cycle. 

She was frustrated and it took her a while, but she found a part time job with the KC School district that eventually became full time.  Shauna paid $3031.33 in past debt and left the program with a savings of $1,212.86.  When she came to visit, she talked about continuing to rely on the budgeting skills she gained while in this program.

Today she is assistant manager in food Service at one of the public schools. She still needs a subsidy to provide a home for her boys, so her Section 8 voucher helps her afford a 4 bedroom home here in the inner city.  She also got all of her children situated in school and in programs they need to be successful.

Shauna calls back periodically with family issues - things that once would have stopped her in her tracks. But, today she is able to say no to her family and think about her children first.  She no longer feels the guilty for not providing for adult family members who continue their chaotic lives. 

I believe that Shauna succeeded because there was something inside her that wanted to succeed.  Lifestyle was the problem.

She was an enabler for her dysfunctional family because she couldn’t say no.  She no longer feels guilty, because she recognizes that her family didn’t cause her to become homeless, her inability to say no to them did. 

Now she understands that she is not responsible for solving her family’s problems. And, she is armed with resources (United Way 211), that they can use to address their own problems, if they choose.  She knows that she is in control of her life and the lives of her children. She has gained the skills to advocate for her family. She has learned that her primary responsibility is to her boys, and her extended family will change in their own time.

Volunteers Matter: Youth Impacting Change

By Kate Nevins, Volunteer Coordinator

The Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) of Kansas City recently spent four days volunteering at Community LINC. While they were here, they set up two apartments for new families to move into, painted the hallway of one of our buildings, worked on beautifying the grounds, cleaned the Children’s Programming areas, washed windows, and got started digging and moving dirt to install a patio in between buildings 2 and 3.

Thanks to the youth of YVC, who chose to give back during their summer vacations!

Culture, poverty and homelessness

Back in 2010, there was a Congressional briefing called Reconsidering Culture and Poverty based on a special issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

I found it after reading a quote from Michael Goodwin, a FOX contributor, stating “the problem that struggling Americans receiving SNAP benefits (food stamps) have isn't really hunger or poverty. It's that they're not ashamed enough about taking the help.”

I realize that commentators take controversial positions to get attention. What worries me is that “policy makers and the public still tend to view poverty through one of two competing lenses. As Michèle Lamont, an editor of the special issue of The Annals, said: ‘Are the poor poor because they are lazy, or are the poor poor because they are a victim of the markets?’”

Or more formally, Michael Laracy, Director of Director of Policy Reform and Advocacy at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said, “Too often, discussions here in Washington ... revert to sort of sterile, default positions with liberals wholly blaming structural issues such as the economy or racism while conservatives too quickly fault our culture and our poor families for counterproductive behaviors and attitudes.”

The positions are so far apart it’s hard to find any middle ground.  If, as liberals believe, the economy and racism cause poverty and homelessness, it feels like there is no solution. The only thing to do for poor families is offer assistance like food stamps. If, as conservatives believe, all poor families are lazy, then they mustn’t deserve assistance.

Around Community LINC, we operate on the assumption that there is indeed a culture of generational homelessness and poverty. Representative Lynne Woolsey of California captured it best when she said, “What a concept. Values, norms, beliefs play very important roles in the way people meet the challenges of poverty.”

But, we don’t share the belief that people should be condemned for what they didn’t learn growing up in poverty.

Instead, we believe in teaching the coping skills, behaviors and attitudes needed to hold a job, stay in school and create better lives for themselves and their children.

We believe that equipping someone willing to learn with knowledge they need is good not just for them, but for the community.

Can you imagine having your child taken away because you're homeless?

One of our board members called late on a Thursday afternoon to tell us that one of his pediatric partners had a newborn patient whose parents would have to live in their car when they left the hospital.

Until our case manager told me, I didn’t realize that the hospital social worker would be obligated to call child services. The baby would be taken away from the parents, because they couldn’t provide a home. She told me another of the mothers already in our program lost her kids to the foster care system because she became homeless.

It happens more than you might guess. According to The National Center on Family Homelessness, 12% of homeless children are placed in foster care, compared to 1% of other children.

And, that isn’t good news for their future.  The National Center on Family Homelessness also tells us that “Foster care placement has been identified as a childhood risk factor that predicts family homelessness during adulthood.” It perpetuates a cycle.

It just so happened that we had an Immediate Housing apartment available, so the family moved in over the weekend.

Last year, Health and Human Services funded pilot programs in five cities to address the problem by creating partnerships between child services and homeless service providers. Let’s hope the pilot programs provide some solid models for keeping homeless children out of foster care.

They have enough strikes against them without losing their families.

Hope for the children

Every family becomes homeless for reasons that are uniquely their own. Some become homeless because of a change in situation or circumstance. Others are born into families that have been in poverty for generations.

Ruby Payne, PhD, writes in Bridges out of Poverty “It is the hope… that 100 years from now poverty will no longer be economically viable. Two hundred years ago slavery was thought to be an economic necessity. It was not. One hundred fifty years ago it was believed that women were not capable of voting. That also was not true. We fervently hope that by 2100 individuals and society at large will no longer believe that poverty is inevitable.”

Because our Children’s Program Director always has great insight into the lives of our children, I asked him if he could share something that would help paint the picture of a child who came to us homeless because of generational poverty. He shared the following.

“Research paints an extremely bleak picture for children born into generational poverty and their chances of upward mobility. These children are statistically dealt a hand that suggests they will never leave poverty.”

“The negative impacts of generational poverty on children are extensive and long lasting. Statistically these children are more likely to have poor diets, be subject to violent situations, change where they live many times, and struggle academically.”

“These statistics hold true for many of the children we serve at Community LINC. Many of our families come from neighborhoods that are food-barren areas. Due to lack of transportation and scarcity of grocery stores, children often eat food that is within walking distance. When I ask students what their favorite foods are an overwhelming number of them say chips, soda, and candy. All of which can be purchased within walking distance across the street at a gas station.” 

“Furthermore, many of our children have been subject to violent situations. Recently I was teaching a class to a group of 4th and 5th graders. I asked who in the room had ever been in a fight, everyone raised their hand.”

“I then asked who knows someone who has been shot; all but one raised their hand.”

“The last question I asked was how many of them had seen a physical fight at home between family members, everyone kept their hand up. Often times our children believe violence is a way to handle problems because that is what they have been exposed to.”

“Many of our children are very transient, meaning they have changed where they live many times. I recently spoke with a client about how many schools her children have attended in the past. She told me that for the last 7 years they have changed where they live between staying with friends and family, shelters, motels, and cars. She said that they usually move 2-3 times a year. This amount of housing instability causes children to have higher stress rates, more emotional and psychological disorders, and more physical health problems.”

“This rate of mobility is also one of the contributing factors to why our children often struggle in school. Another harsh reality is that the schools that our students attend are failing to meet their needs because they lack the necessary resources. Our students often express concerns about their safety and educational needs not being met by their schools. Also, many of our students face additional responsibilities at home that hinder their education.  Due to lack of family resources many students are required to contribute financially. Right now we have a 16 year old girl who works full time at a restaurant on top of being a junior in high school.”         

“Despite the difficult situation our children go through I would describe them as amazing kids. Their ability to express concerns about their future and their needs being met shows a desire to make the right choices, and a hunger to learn.”

We share Ruby Payne’s hope for these amazing kids.

Making sure school isn't a roadblock for a homeless child

Studies tell us that the academic performance of a homeless child is hindered both by poor cognitive and non-cognitive development and by the negative circumstances of being homeless. 

Homeless children are 4 times as likely to suffer from a developmental delay as other housed children.

By age 4, the average child in poverty might have heard 13 million fewer words than the average child in a working class family.

Constant mobility paired with chronic illnesses leads to extreme absenteeism. As a result, 75% of homeless children perform below grade level in reading, 72% below grade level in spelling, and 54% below grade level in math.

Homeless children who experience academic difficulties are more likely to drop out of high school.

Although homeless students are more likely to need special education services only 38 percent of students with learning disabilities receive assistance for their disabilities compared to 75 percent of housed children with learning disabilities.

These ongoing issues are noticeable when you consider that homeless children are twice as likely to be held back a year in school compared to other children.

So, what can we do to help in a short period of time?

Our Children’s Program Director teaches us that there are several things we can do to help kids academically. They boil down to (1) helping the parents navigate schools and services so that they learn to help their children and (2) teaching the students life skills to equip them to manage themselves at school.      

     

Lessons and skills taught in the Children’s Program are designed to be practiced in schools.

a.            Anger management

b.            Perseverance

c.            Goal setting

d.            Learned optimism – to have an open mind and a positive attitude towards school.

He goes on to share, “Students have difficulty thinking about the future and how their actions now are having an impact on their lives later in their life.  I have seen how goal setting lessons help students to think about the big picture.”

“In one lesson students make a road map with graduation at the end. Students determine their own personal roadblocks.”

“A 7th grader named Janelle had roadblocks like getting pregnant, doing drugs, skipping school, and fighting at school. Her roadmap was covered with encouraging words to herself.”

“The next lesson was based around where student saw themselves in 10 years. She wrote on her poster “I see myself in 10 years as a respectful, responsible young lady. I want to be in college or out of college. I want my mom and dad and family to be proud of my outcomes. But most of all I want to be proud of myself. I want to be happy.”

Next month, more about breaking the cycle of generational and situational poverty for children.