An open letter from a faith-based volunteer to the professionals that help the homeless in the community…
This is a guest blog provided by John Horn. John is a friend and reader of the blog who works in the field of homelessness and is also a man of devout faith. He has penned this response to the Open Letter to Faith Based Organizations blog I wrote a few weeks back. I respect his opinion, input and response, and with his permission, I am posting it as the blog for this week.
Dear (insert name of said professional)…
You do not approve of the homeless feeding program that my fellow church members and I provide on a weekly basis. I know this because you voiced concerns about the feeding in a news story on the program. I am sorry that my actions made you upset and that you feel that I am part of the problem – not part of the solution – to ending homelessness. Rather than complain about what we are doing, work with us to be part of the solution that you spoke about. Here are some suggestions to help us…
Understand that we care. We saw people in need and wanted to help. Food is easy to provide and can help people feel better – even if only for a little while. We did our best.
Talk to us. Our church has been around for years but have you ever come to meet with us? We have been feeding in the park for a long time and not once did you stop to talk to us about our approach and how it was a misguided approach. We obviously care about people and would not be upset if you came to speak with us about what we could do that is more effective than a feeding program in the park.
Speak so we can understand. Helping the homeless is not my full-time job so please stop using acronyms and terms that I do not understand. What is CES? PSH? SPDAT? How am I supposed to help if I do not understand what it is you are talking about? You want me to come along? Then be prepared to teach me what I need to know in plain language.
Know that our church is not made of money. We are providing food in part because it is an inexpensive response to homelessness. Our church is not a mega-church. We do not have a lot of discretionary money for programs. Understand that our food program is 100% volunteer and donation driven. We hold a lot of soup suppers to get donations but this does not amount to a lot of money. We want to help but funding is limited – suggest solutions that are practical.
Be consistent. We are volunteers and are out here providing food every week – rain or shine. You came to speak with us but we have hardly seen you since then. You said we should incorporate assessments of people to get them into the system and you said that you would be by to complete them. We advertised that these assessments would be provided but – on the day of our feeding – you failed to show. We also hand out the cards you gave us with your hotline number but the folks we serve say that you never return calls. Why commit to something if you cannot do it?
We still see people on the street. You asked us to stop feeding in the park. You asked us to be advocates. You asked us to provide move-in baskets. We did all that was asked but we still see homelessness on the streets. How do we reconcile what you are asking with the suffering we see on the streets? People are still hungry so do we just look the other way and be confident in that we are helping the “right” way?
Thank you for listening. I hope that we can work together to end homelessness.
Sincerely,
A volunteer who cares.
One Truly Beautiful Thing
Homelessness is human suffering. You cannot spin human suffering. But you can still decide to do one truly beautiful thing. Maybe that is once per day. Maybe once per week. Heck, maybe once a year.
If I say “do one truly beautiful thing” to most people and they think of something exceptional…outside the norm. I am not surprised when they think of charity. Beauty, in my opinion, is best when it lasts. Beauty is best when it is something deeper than how we value or turn most things we like into commodities.
We are made up of small changes, incrementally feeding into the behaviour of the person we choose to be. If you do one truly beautiful thing in those small changes, you can relate more honestly with human suffering.
Our shared humanity is our beauty. I am not better or worse than any person I serve. I have a different address. I will not pathologize any perception of affliction or issue in a person’s life. I will not give in to those who would have me see homelessness as a character flaw.
Doing one truly beautiful thing is scary. At the root of most of our work area bunch of cold calculations – how are we going to use which technique to improve a person’s life today or even get them out of homelessness. In fact, some are so entrenched in the condition of their homelessness that you can watch others give up on even trying to do a beautiful thing to change their practice to engage better.
For almost a year now I have been doing one truly beautiful thing each month. I think of one area of my professional life (blogging, training, engaging with people that are homeless so that other practitioners can see my approach, meeting with senior leaders, process diagrams, evaluation, grant writing, policies and procedures, etc.) and think of how I can truly add more beauty to one part of it. To add beauty to something, I have given myself the following conditions:
The improvement has to be more emotional meaningful than it previous was;
It has to be authentic, not contrived or forced;
With perspective I feel a great emotional connection than I otherwise would.
I am never going to be the touchy-feeler social work type. But that does not mean that beauty is lost on me or that I am incapable of deliberately trying to do beautiful things. When surrounded by human suffering, I owe the world manufactured beauty, because, to paraphrase King, only light can erase darkness.
Leading Change
The 2016 Leadership Academy in Ending Homelessness is in the books. We had another sell-out this year, with participants from three countries. Clear to me: we need to keep investing in leadership if we want to achieve complex social change. And homelessness is definitely an example of complex social change.
For the participants, it was a chance to reflect on who they are as a leader. This means an examination of strengths and opportunities for growth from a very vulnerable position, getting deep into sharing with table teams that were organized in advance with a collection of people to influence and be influenced by (that they had unlikely ever met before the academy). Against the serene backdrop of West Virginia, there was also time for considerable self-reflection and increased personal awareness.
Day Two allowed us to move into how we influence others and how we are influenced by others. Drawing upon the first day, the attendees come to learn how their own morality, values and beliefs frame how they tell the story of homelessness and that such a story (Teachable Point of View) needs to reach people at an emotional level if it is going to have influence in how they respond to homelessness. Change is influenced heavily by emotions.
On the final day, we get really heavy and explore systems leadership. If we want to appropriately engage with the likes of health, mental health, substance use recovery, benefits, criminal justice, child welfare and other systems then we need to figure out the interconnectivity through regenerative dialogue. Homelessness touches so many other systems that change cannot happen independently of those other systems. The problem is that we rarely tap into creativity to explore non-linear connections and opportunities to respond to and create change.
Throughout the three days we had guests as well. Linda Kaufman talked about leaning into mistake-making. Ann Oliva, on her own dime and time, walked people through her life journey and growth into leadership, as well as touching on risk-taking and the impacts of gender and race. Zach Brown helped leaders see the value of data dashboards so that they best understand how to track the change they are influencing.
Overall, the experience was an extraordinary gift to me, and the ability to influence so many other thoughtful and influential leaders. I think we are moving in the right direction towards making change sustainable in the issue of homelessness and move communities closer to achieving the aim of making it rare, of short duration and non-recurring.
Now onto the next challenge for OrgCode, preparing the materials for the Learning Clinics to help practitioners take the next step towards service excellence.
An Open Letter to the Faith-based Group that Wants to Help People that are Homeless
Dear (insert name of church, temple, synagogue, mosque, etc.),
In the name of (insert deity believed in/worshipped), I understand you are called upon to help humankind as a way of living your faith and putting into practice the teachings of your religion. This is most welcome, and we are grateful that you have chosen to help people that are experiencing homelessness. I am an expert in the field of homelessness, so while it is unsolicited by you, I want to take this opportunity to fill you in on ways that would be most helpful, and the stuff you may be thinking of doing that will just get in the way of what experts are trying to achieve.
If you are like me, you have been in a hospital emergency room once or more in your life. I suspect you have been frustrated with wait times and wished there was someone, somewhere that could show up to help out with people that are ill, injured, or otherwise suffering. I hope we both agree that medicine should be practiced by medical professionals. While many hospitals were started by people of faith, and many of the early administrators and funders were called to start the hospital because of their beliefs, they understood that the actual practice of medicine should be left to people with appropriate training, expertise, and education. Because you are, perhaps, unfamiliar with homelessness (though you see it every day), the work of ending homelessness is much the same. Day in and day out, professionals in this field engage with people with tremendous traumatic histories, physical ailments, long histories of housing instability, people that have a history of conflict with the law, family relationships that broke down because they were unhealthy, addiction and dependency, mental illness, and/or, detachment from others. We focus on ending people’s homelessness even with all of this knowledge. In fact, most of the people we see on a daily basis are likely more complex in their case history than the typical person you would find in an emergency room of a hospital. So, just as you would not want an untrained professional practicing medicine, I hope you can appreciate that we would prefer that you don’t practice ending homelessness with people that you are untrained to effectively engage with; people that you could end up making their life worse instead of better, even when you are well intentioned.
First, can we talk food?
Christians reading this are probably familiar with this idea of What Would Jesus Do? Other religions may have similar sentiments. If you really care about food security, we would appreciate that you spent your time and resources advocating that people have a livable wage or adequate food stamps or other income supports so that they can obtain nutritious food of their choosing. Are day old donuts really the best you can do? Bologna? Whiz? Did you think that maybe people’s oral hygiene has been compromised a bit, and that hard granola bars and the like would be difficult to chew and consume. How much coffee should a person really consume in a day? Is a high-fructose fruit cocktail from concentrate really going to benefit the individual?
Some of you open up your places of worship and serve a meal to people that are homeless. From my experience, many of you go to great lengths to prepare a magnificent feast. Members of your congregations showcase their best recipes with loving spoonfuls. And whereas you would expect a restaurant or cafeteria to ensure everyone to be trained and qualified in safe food handling, and that all food comes from an inspected source, too often you – as remarkably well intentioned as you are – are putting the lives of vulnerable people at risk. Food poisoning is terrible when you are housed and have your own bathroom (even though you probably called it something like a 24 hour flu – of which there is no such thing medically speaking – and was most likely food poisoning), but you can imagine how much more awful the experience is when you are sheltered with a bunch of other people or living on the streets.
One more thing on food, if I may. If you look at the calendar there are several turkey opportunities coming up. While I don’t know of any empirical research, I suspect people that are homeless like turkey as much as housed people. What would be awesome is if you put the same amount of money and effort into getting housing, paying for first and last, or damage deposits – or even time-limited shallow subsidies – as you do organizing turkey drives and banquets. Heck, this year you may even want to forego the turkey. If I was homeless and I was given the option of turkey or a home, I would go with a home.
Secondly, let us talk about those people you want to help that are living outside.
You may not be aware that there are professional street outreach workers in most communities. These women and men are trained in the art of engagement and rapport building to get people living outdoors connected to services that will end their homelessness. Many communities are housing people directly from parks, street corners, under bridges, cars, and the like. These professionals most often know how to do the work without re-traumatizing the person with whom they are engaging. They are likely prioritizing with whom they engage and what they are trying to accomplish in any given day or night, because there are quite likely more people outside than there is capacity within outreach services.
I don’t want to paint any group of people experiencing homelessness with too broad of a brush stroke, but suffice to say many of the people you are seeing outside are amongst the people with the most complex needs and histories you will ever meet. Rarely are housing problems solved in one encounter. Heck, there are some people outside that lack trust of any organization because they have been burned too many times.
But did you know that the weather elements are not one of the leading causes of death for people that are homeless? You thought it was because you didn’t have the facts. So, I suspect you have or were planning on doing a drive to bring people sleeping bags and tarps and tents and such. All that does is make the work of the professional outreach workers harder in most instances. If anyone is going to hand out survival gear, probably best that the professionals determine when it is appropriate and when it is enabling. Meanwhile, a bunch of people that are homeless are about to die from cardiovascular disease, cancer, liver related diseases and infectious diseases. We should probably focus more on those things.
Thirdly, can we talk about housing?
Housing is the only known cure to homelessness. That is what we really need. If you want to help people that are homeless, help us with this. We need a lot of help. And there is a lot you can do.
No one wants you to build the housing. If you look at things like Habitat for Humanity, it sounds great, but not a lot of multi-unit residential housing is built that way. Most of the time it is one-offs for one family that the local HfH determined qualified and chose. It is like winning the lottery. Those things look great, but they don’t help the people we need help with, by and large.
How about you and everyone at your (insert place of worship type) start a letter writing campaign to your local, regional, provincial/state, and federal elected representatives asking them to build more housing that is deeply affordable for people living on government assistance or minimum wage? And then when you all get the polite “Our government is working really hard to ensure all citizens have access to housing…” letter, respond with the “Thanks for the canned response, now please provide us details suitable for our congregation on how this is going to be put into action.” YOU have the incredible ability to have a unified voice in creating change in this regard. Similar strategies could work for getting more housing vouchers, rent supplements, and other types of subsidies.
How about you and everyone at your (insert place of worship type) undertake fundraising to specifically allow some people that are homeless in your community to get access to housing because they do not qualify for various government programs? In some communities these are people like non-citizens. In other communities it is the like of people that were dishonorably discharged from military service and are not permitted to access most programs for veterans. Or you could help sponsor one chronically homeless person in housing every year. It may not have the same reach as peanut butter sandwiches, or have the same media presence or photo opportunities as a turkey dinner, but it will allow someone to permanently end their homelessness.
Maybe your (insert place of worship type) has surplus land, buildings that are not used, or other assets that can be turned over into affordable housing or sold to gain money for the purpose of housing. In most communities there would be one or more established, professionally run not for profit organization with expertise in housing that could turn this gift into a lasting asset that forever ends homelessness for a larger volume of people that are homeless. There would even be an opportunity for ribbons to be cut, media to be involved, and perhaps even naming rights.
Want to do something more hands-on? Create “Welcome Home” starter kits for every household that moves out of homelessness into their own apartment. Think of everything a person needs to start an apartment – dishes, cleaning supplies, pots, pans, salt, pepper, shower curtain, bedding, towels, shampoo, soap, toilet paper, etc. – and have one delivered by member of your (insert place of worship type) every time a person moves into housing and wants one from you. You get face time with previously homeless persons moving into housing, and they get all of the essentials to get started in a new life.
Lastly, I am hoping we can talk about dignity and the value of personhood for a moment.
In the history of humankind, charity has never solved a complex social issue. It never will. It is not designed to do so. Charity is great at meeting immediate needs. But it is lousy at getting to the root of the issue and navigating the complexity of systems and individual needs. Critical analysis of most charitable responses to homelessness, unfortunately, demonstrate that the delivery of the charity has more value for the giver than the receiver. You feel good because you did something for someone in need. While you may have alleviated suffering over the short term, you did nothing over the long term – and maybe interfered with the work of other professionals unknowingly. You unintentionally created a dependent relationship between giver and receiver. Yes, a person that is homeless may need food, clothing, or a roof over their head tonight. But they will need it again tomorrow night and the night after that and the night after that (and so on) if we don’t focus our efforts on housing to end homelessness.
If you think the issue is too overwhelming to focus on housing…if you are the sort of person that parlays this into the adage of the man throwing starfish back into the ocean…I can assure you that statistically (go ahead look at your census data and government assisted housing data, etc.) almost every single person in your community with the EXACT same issues as the person that is homeless is housed. Almost nobody with a mental illness ever becomes homeless. Almost nobody with a chronic health condition ever becomes homeless. Almost nobody with a substance use disorder becomes homeless. Almost nobody living in economic poverty ever becomes homeless. Almost nobody with terrible credit history or eviction histories becomes homeless. Almost all sex offenders and persons that have served time for other offences are housed. And so on. You see symptoms of homelessness and feed into the mythology of homelessness because you are not a professional in the field. It is really no different than people believing myths of waiting after they eat before swimming or thinking that if you consume chewing gum it will take years to digest – or any other such nonsense. As a professional I know how to separate fact from fiction when working with people to come up with solutions to their homelessness. Trust us in this field that have got graduate degrees, published papers, presented at conferences, undergone peer review of our work, continually work on our professional development, and network with other professionals on a regular basis.
I am begging you, if you are a person of faith, to pray and discern what is truly in the best interest of the people that are homeless you aim to assist. Would your deity be pleased if you were actually killing people with your kindness or interfering with the professional care they should be receiving? Is there a way you can practice your beliefs and end homelessness rather than manage homelessness? There is. Look deep into your heart and conscience. Please do so.
Sincerely,
A guy that has been at this for decades and is at a loss of what to do to help faith groups engage in solutions rather than charity
Museums of Suffering
The tour. You have been on one or given one. You walk through a homeless shelter or day centre or spend a night on an outreach van or a morning at a soup kitchen. You see the things that go on there. You meet the people – the program participants, residents and clientele; the staff; the volunteers. When these same buildings and programs are anchored in more traditional models rather than being focused on rapid exit from homelessness into housing they become, by definition, homelessness as a museum – objects of historical, scientific, artistic or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.
People that experience longer term homelessness are more prone to die. At some point for the observer the question of why the person is homeless and how to end it becomes a question of when the person will pass away. They can become resigned to what they see as inevitable.
Sadness is the cost of being able to smile once in a while. All of us are relative in our perspective and perceptions of the world around us. Seeing homelessness from a place of sympathy rather than empathy can bring the voyeur happiness. Every time someone remarks, “There but for the grace of god go I” it is easy to see relief.
Trauma-informed service delivery compels us to work with people. We are not to do things to another person or for another person. In being transparent in this process, the intent is to build trust. With emotional safety created, we are to be catalysts for building connections that endure and offer the assistance the person needs. In many homeless facilities, we forget all of this. Think of the program that makes people graduate through different dormitories or privileges gained for obedience to fulfilling program milestones. Think of the programs that bring in untrained volunteers to engage with people about the most intimate details of their life during moments of exceptional vulnerability.
Museums of suffering have special exhibits as well. Exhibit A, the woman that graduated from the program that lays out her story to self-sufficiency on the website, revealing the most intimate details of her suffering and progress along the way. Exhibit B, the man that is invited to speak at your Annual General Meeting to regale others with his story of despair to stability, all because of everything your organization did for him. Exhibit C, the family that you put the media in contact with just after Thanksgiving to outline how they got out of shelter and now have a shot at the future, as the journalist probes their addiction, parenting, educational treatment, traumatic past, ability to budget, and how they meet their most basic needs. For all of these Exhibits, whether named or not, the intent is to heap praise on the curator for putting on such a display, which means more money. It is a tragedy in slow motion to watch this happen. It is the horrific event that one wishes they could stop when everything seems to slow down around you. And these types of exhibits are so commonplace we cheer them on, and wait for them.
Einstein once remarked that gravity should not be held responsible for two people falling in love. Gravity should not be held responsible for people falling deeper into despair either. Each page of our life cannot be rewritten. Yet most museums of suffering make program participants essentially re-read each page over and over again. It is as if somewhere in a dusty old vault the museum is going to pull out a time machine and allow us to go back in time and reverse course. Impossible.
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity,” remarked Hanlon. Perhaps it is not that those involved are malicious. Perhaps it is that they are not well informed. But one has to wonder when the tipping point of knowledge will occur. If I had a nickel for every instance a service provider has told me housing is not the answer for their clients’ homelessness but [insert: substance use recovery, Christ, medication management, budgeting, life skills, parenting classes, anger management, employment, etc.] is, then I know that the museum industry is booming. Because even when all of these are the wrong answer, people still give them gobs of money as if it is a sound investment on the best guess of what to do.
I believe that sweat holds more value than tears. We have to work harder. We have to work smarter. We have to demand that we do that which will end homelessness. We have to stop displaying the homelessness of others for our gain. We have to stop showing off volunteers and staff as proof of our importance. We have to stop thinking one more walk through of a dorm or commercial kitchen or waiting room is the answer. We need to bid adieu to uncertainty and embrace that housing is the only known cure to homelessness. And when a person or family needs supports, we provide those in housing.
To do anything else is akin to preparing another exhibit for the museum of suffering.
Making Change Happen
I do listening sessions with groups of case managers and outreach workers in several of the communities where we do work. It is their chance to share what is working and not working in their practice, and gives us the opportunity to identify strategies or techniques they can try to improve their practice. I absolutely love doing them, and can often see the frustrations experienced turn into optimism.
One of the most recurring themes in these sessions is the outreach worker or case manager that gets frustrated that the person they are trying to support is not changing (or not changing fast enough given some funders provide a timeline for certain activities to be completed). We often go down the road (again) of how coercing, threatening, ingratiating, contracting with, bribing and bargaining does not get strong lasting change results.
But where I have been finding myself thinking more in reinforcing change is walking people through the four strategies and approaches most adults can benefit from when there is a change situation to be considered.
Self-aware and self-guided
I know I need to change. I know what I need to change. I know how to change it. I have the resources and skills to change it. I change.
Self-aware and assistance guided
I know I need to change. I may know what I need to change. I don’t know how to change it. Or, I don’t have the resources or skills to change, so I seek them out. I connect to those resources. I learn and take on the challenge of change with that assistance. I change.
Motivational Interviewing
I am motivated to change because a helping professional used a personal-centred approach to be exploratory in her inquiry to stimulate change. This intentional conversation was evocative enough to call forth my own motivation to change. I may still need supports along the way. I change.
Assertive Engagement
I do not see the need for change, or do not see the need for change right now. Motivational interviewing has been attempted and gotten us nowhere. Part of my current behaviour is putting myself or others at risk which is why change is needed. Because I put up defences when change is suggested, a helping professional challenges those defences to make me more vulnerable to understanding the need for change – at least for the duration of the engagement. We are action focused. I change.
As a sector, I think we can lose sight of how the first two likely happen more than we know. There are some helping professionals who think it would be impossible for the people they support to change without them. I think we are doing a better job infusing motivational interviewing into the sector, but we can do a better job making sure the trainers are grounding the techniques into the realities of working with homeless and under-housed persons, and move the training and strategies a bit away from hyper-therapeutic environments, which most of the people we serve are not located within. And there is a need to continue to expand opportunities for workers to know how and when to apply Assertive Engagement. If change really is going to be a benefit because there is harm – and the person is not changing – then probably best to learn the interpersonal skills and creativity skills to increase the likelihood of change, rather than just being frustrated that change is not happening.