What is it like for the moms?

Since Mother’s Day is this Sunday, I started thinking about all of the mothers, especially the single mothers, who are sliding into homelessness now.

A former co-worker used to call mothers and children the invisible homeless. You don’t see them pushing a shopping cart or sleeping out in the open on park benches or under bridges where their children are vulnerable. They stay with family or friends until they’re no longer welcome. Then they sleep in cars and go to shelters.

By the time a mom moves into our transitional housing, she has lost a lot of connections - with family, friends and even service providers. Those supportive kinds of relationships are often tied to the neighborhood. It’s really difficult to maintain the crucial ties that took time to form and anchored her children’s lives.

Most of our moms feel like they have failed their children. You see it in the flat affect on so many faces when they move in.

Then, they begin to feel like their kids are safe and life is stabilizing. Their coaches and counselors connect them with services for their kids. They go to lifeskills classes and start working with a budgeter. They begin to create new relationships when they make friends with other moms who are struggling with the same experience.

They do their kids proud. 47 moms moved their children into a home they bought when they graduated from the program. Myeshia got her GED and is enrolled in college. Cindy is getting her MBA. Stephanie is going to law school next fall.

And, their kids have done them proud. Jermaine is the first college graduate in his family. Stephen is finishing his freshman year in college. Julius had his choice of colleges, but is joining his big brother Stephen. Tiffany is one of the speakers at her high school graduation and someday wants to be an attorney and eventually a judge.

Happy Mothers Day to all of the wonderful mothers who have passed through our doors. To all of the moms facing homelessness now, hold on to the hope. To quote Jermaine, “Where you are, isn’t where you’re going to be.”

Finding Strength

A classic characteristic of women who have been in abusive and controlling relationships is the belief that they are worthless and incapable of surviving on their own. Even when there is no physical abuse, constant subjection to verbal assaults and demeaning mistreatment results in a weakened self-image and little or no confidence. Fortunately, many who somehow find the strength to leave such relationships also find the strength to succeed. Michelle is a wonderful example.

After leaving an extremely controlling husband, whom she solely relied on for care and support, Michelle entered Community LINC. With few marketable skills, a limited employment history, and few personal possessions, she entered the program and immediately began her long and difficult journey toward self-sufficiency. Motivated by her adverse circumstances, Michelle enrolled in and completed a GED program, settled all of her legal issues, obtained more lucrative employment, retired over $2000.00 worth of debt, saved over $3000.00, and moved to permanent housing.

Despite a long history of relying on others, Michelle found her strength and moved from dependence to self-sufficiency!

- Jeannine Short, Director of Programs

Changing Demographics

As a staff, we discussed our midyear results on Monday. The biggest surprise was the possibility that changing demographics are impacting our transitional housing program in an unexpected way.

As I’ve mentioned before, in the first six months of this year, twice as many two parent families have been part of the program than have ever been here over a whole year. We also have had fairly rapid movement in families during the last six months. We wondered first if there was a correlation between rapid turnover and two parent families. Second, if there is, does it mean our program is not effective for fathers or two parent families?

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with rapid turnarounds. We want families to get back on their feet as quickly as possible.

However, our program is built on life change, not just the removal of barriers to housing. A few weeks isn’t long enough to repair badly damaged credit, pay down debt or accumulate savings that will create stability after the family returns to permanent housing. It also isn’t long enough to build the supportive relationships that are key to permanent life change, to adopt life skills, and to change lifelong behaviors that contributed to homelessness.

So we were concerned that if two parent families leave more quickly than single parent families, our supportive services may be less effective for two parent families.

It turns out that a greater percentage of single parent families than two parent families left during the first six months of the year. Half of the single parent families left during the first six months and only a third of the two parent families left. However, the single parent families who left had been here for an average of nearly seven months. The two parent families that left stayed only about a month and a half and were among our least successful families.

Happily, none of the families that exited in the last six months became homeless again.

The program is clearly working well for two thirds of our two parent families. Our challenge is to keep our eyes open for signs that we need to adapt as things change.

- Laura Gray