Therapy Matters: Fathers matter

By a Children's Mental Wellness Therapist

Some of the children in our program show increases in anxiety when they are learning to transition into the program and to be surrounded by other youth! 

In working with an only child showing that anxiety, one of our therapists gave the child a task to write a letter to someone who he cares about. The young man immediately chose to write a letter to his absentee father.  It took a while, but on the fourth session, the young man wrote a letter to his father describing his pain and the experience of living his life without him.  

The child was the given the opportunity his letter with the therapist, if he chose. It was a chance to express himself with a non-threatening person in a safe environment.  As a result, the young man reported feeling better, relieved and less stressed.  

Our young man is also working with therapist on learning the art of forgiveness and moving forward.  He admits that the challenge to write to his father was difficult but feels happy that he was able to release his emotions through writing and no longer feels angry or sad.

Jobs Matter: Overcoming Homelessness Employment Barriers

By Employment Services Jobs Coach, Constance Taylor

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate for August 2013 was 7.3%. The survey showed that the US unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage points in August to 7.3%. The unemployment rate peaked in October 2009 at 10.0% and is now 2.7 percentage points lower. 

In July 2013 the National unemployment rate was 7.4%. Missouri was at 7.1% with the number of persons unemployed in Kansas City at 69,607. This number increased from 68,797 unemployed in June. While the national level decreased the number of unemployed in Kansa City increased.

Many homeless individuals are part of the population of the unemployed. Their barriers to employment are extreme, with homelessness being at the top of the list.  The barriers are sometimes due to trauma (often experienced when they became homeless), lack of education, computer knowledge, job experience and other skills.  Subpopulations of the homeless also have barriers from incarceration, extended hospitalization, mental illness, and alcohol and/or drug abuse.

Research shows that people who are homeless do want to work. “Researchers with the Department of Labor seven-year Job Training for the Homeless Demonstration Program reported that with the correct blend of assessment, case management, employment, training, housing and support services, a substantial portion of homeless individuals can secure and retain jobs that will contribute to housing stability.”

Through studies, the Chronic Homelessness Employment Technical Assistance Center found that staff members are challenged while working with employers who also often share stereotypes that a homeless person with multiple barriers are not good candidates for employment. Employers sometimes automatically assume that they will have a poor appearance, will not have good hygiene and will not fit in the workplace because of stigma that comes with having no permanent housing.

To help individuals overcome and be successful, our Employment Program strives to develop individual employment plans based on each person’s short term, intermediate and long term goals. Our approach is to assist each person to develop a plan that will provide positive long term benefits that will prevent any more instances of homelessness.

It's even harder to search for a job without childcare.

We believe that if the person owns the steps required to get different results, with support from our staff and services, they will have long lasting success with security in employment and housing. 

We are striving to develop partnerships with other agencies like Connections to Success, Kansas City Metropolitan Crime Commission Second-Chance Program for ex-offenders, and will make referrals to other agencies and organizations in the community that will assist meeting the needs of those experiencing addictions and mental illness at the discretion of our Mental Health Director. Our aftercare program provides us the ability to follow a participant up to 9 months of recovery. 

In conclusion, in the book written by Liane Phillips and Echo Montgomery Garrett, “Why Don’t They Just Get a Job”, you witness the compassion of two community leaders who believe that there is hope even for those expelled by society.  We share the opinion of the authors that we must be the ones that help answer that question and believe that even the chronically homeless population can achieve stable employment with decent wages and health benefits, when they take the necessary steps to break the chains of poverty.  

Families Matter: Rapidly re-housing homeless families

By Housing Coordinator, Tammy Mayhue

 

Community LINC’s Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) equips the families we serve to regain their self-sufficiency and their own housing. We establish the amount and types of assistance they need to rapidly obtain housing and supplement it with the services that will give them the skills and resources to keep their homes. RRH assistance is only available for families who are literally homeless - meaning they have nowhere else to go. They may be living in a homeless shelter, a motel, a car, or another place unsuitable for human habitation.

 

The Rapid Re-Housing Program is an excellent opportunity for families who lack means and support systems to move from an emergency shelter or a transitional living environment into a house or apartment they can afford with their present income.

Volunteers Matter: Giving Back with your Significant Other

Gerald and wife Stephanie volunteer together. 

By Volunteer Coordinator, Kate Nevins

Volunteering is not usually thought of as an activity for couples.

Dinner and a movie? Yes, that’s a date. 

Visiting the Nelson Atkins Art Museum and walking around on the Plaza? Yes, that’s a date. 

Going to help out in the Children’s Program at Community LINC on a Thursday night? This would not even occur to most couples as a way for them to spend time together, but Community LINC is fortunate to have several couples who volunteer their time together on a regular basis. Community LINC would like to thank Michael and Melissa Ashcraft, Katie and Ben Hollon, Stephanie and Gerald Ostapko, and Tina and Keith McHudson for their work in the Children’s Program. 

We certainly rely on people like them, and we have a feeling that they get something more out of being here than they would at home in front of the t.v.!

Does poverty discriminate or do we?

Fifty years ago this week Dr. Martin Luther King gave his most famous speech - the “I have a dream” speech. Most people remember it for the stirring vision of freedom and equality for every American.

Wynton Marsalis points out, “How many of us today know that it was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom? I sure didn't. And it is now clear that poor and working class citizens need to be an integral part of our economic system. This necessity transcends race. Race is a matter of physiology; discrimination is a matter of culture, and culture shapes public perception, which influences political action.”

When I read the comments on the Fox News website about the 50^th anniversary of the speech, the first several I saw were about how many blacks are criminals or on welfare. To at least some of the public, crime, poverty and race all blur together.

Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat of California, noted at a 2010 Congressional briefing, that views of the cultural roots of poverty “play important roles in shaping how lawmakers choose to address poverty issues.”

There is no question that poverty still disproportionately impacts non-whites in America. In 2010, 27% of blacks and Hispanics were below the poverty level versus 9% of whites and 12% of Asians.

As long as lawmakers share the perception by some of the public that poverty shows a character flaw, political action won’t be of much use in the fight to end poverty.

We’ll just have to keep trying to change those perceptions and striving to live up to Dr. King’s vision of freedom and equality. 

Children Matter: Longing to be like everybody else

By Ryan Blake, Children’s Program Director

I think there is a direct correlation between poverty, homelessness and self-esteem. Many children are embarrassed to appear poor. That's why you'll see children receiving free school lunches with a nice outfit, expensive shoes, and a new cell phone. They want to look like the  middle class students.

Another example of students being embarrassed by their family’s financial situation is an unwillingness to be associated with Community LINC.

We have a Community LINC Teen Facebook page where teens can keep in touch with us. None of the teens have wanted to join the page, because they don’t want their friends to know they lived here.

I also noticed that sometimes the school bus lets out our children around the corner from our building. When I asked why they get dropped off over there, the kids told me they don’t want people to know where they live.

Self-esteem is a major topic that we talk about with our students. I want them to see a connection with making the right choices and feeling good about themselves.

A month ago I was teaching a class of 5th grade boys about self-esteem. When I asked the class if where you live affects your self-esteem, 10 year Jamal silenced the class with his answer.

Jamal said, "I think it’s harder for people who live in the hood to have high self-esteem”. He explained that “there are people doing drugs, hookers, and killing people, and tons of crime in the hood, it’s harder to be happy with so many negative things happening every day.” 

I asked them if it was true for the neighborhood where Community LINC is, and everyone agreed that this neighborhood isn’t that bad.  I questioned them about it, and they gave me an example of a pair of shoes a student was wearing. “See Robert’s Nikes… he can walk down the street with them on and not worry, if it was a bad neighborhood Robert could get beaten up for his shoes.”

Aftercare Matters: Stuff

By: Sara Barrett, Aftercare Case Manager

 

Three weeks in to Aftercare, I was excited to get to a particular home visit with a Community LINC client. She had received furniture to fill her home, due to a referral made to a partnering agency to fill this need. Feeling great about the fact that she had all of the material things that seemed necessary to make a home a home, and excited to celebrate this with her, I was greeted by a home in disarray and an upset, overwhelmed young mom.

 

Furniture was all over the living room and the kitchen was stacked to the top cabinets with cooking necessities. My client burst into tears and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do this in my own place.”

 

When I asked her what she meant, she went on to explain, this was her first experience living in her own home and owning all the furniture and materials one might put in a home.

 

She had spent the week trying to get the home ready for my arrival of our hour long home visit, hoping I would be impressed that she had put a whole home together, but grew stressed and overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for so much. She said, “Is this what it’s like to be not homeless? Why do people think all this stuff is what creates happiness? Why did I think that?”

 

My heart sank, and I sat down on the couch, which was halfway in the dining room and halfway in the kitchen. My client sat next to me and we made plan to get the home in order.

 

As we worked to put things in their “proper place” my mind swirled. What is my job here? What is happiness? What is success in this program? I had this idea of what it looked like to move from homelessness to self-sufficiency; what I as a “social worker” would call success, what a put-together home might look like; but I’m not here to make my ideas my client’s ideas. I was humbled by the power I have as a worker-that someone would spend a week in distress to impress me with the condition of her home. 

 

My client eventually settled in to the responsibility of caring for and seeing the benefit of having the material things she has in her home - a table to eat family dinners around, a couch to plop on with her kids and watch a movie or paint nails, and a full kitchen to prepare healthy meals for her family.

 

We laugh now when we talk about that day, but our conversation on this topic always ends with the idea that all the material things we have are just stuff.

 

Self-sufficiency is about more than the roof over our heads or the things we have in our home, it starts with the belief in one’s self that he or she can become self-sufficient; that one does have the ability to maintain a home and that this ability is valuable.

 

My job as the aftercare worker is to see the strengths in the clients I serve that can be cultivated into life skills, help the client see those for him or herself, and partner with them to develop those into what self-sufficiency looks like to them. If we can do that, all the other “stuff” will fall into place.