homeless housing

I hate moving. It is a long, laborious process that takes at least a couple of months to plan and a couple of months to recuperate. You have to find cardboard boxes, ask your friend with a truck to haul your stuff, make sure that your furniture will fit, and pay first, last, and a deposit.

Now imagine adding homelessness into the mix.

For the thousands of families experiencing homelessness for the first time, this process is much more painful. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), family homelessness has risen 56 percent over the last year. When a family becomes homeless, where do they keep their belongings? Can they afford a storage unit? How many pictures and teddy bears are lost in the process? Are the happy memories lost as well?

With family homelessness on the rise, social welfare agencies are overextended, nonprofits are cash-strapped, and considering the economy, even minimum-wage jobs are few and far between. The system itself doesn’t lend a hand. The homeless mom or dad can’t apply for a job without an address and can’t pass a credit check if they just lost their home to the mortgage crisis. Homeless families become stuck.

This is where organizations, such as First Place School, come in. On a recent Friday, I spent the day learning about statistics and strategies to end family homelessness and visiting First Place. The school, a cheery, brick building on Capitol Hill, is a private school for homeless children or children at risk of becoming homelessness. It is stocked full of everything a homeless family would need, including new clothes, supportive staff, and counseling, health, and housing services.

There are a lot of homeless people living in cars or camping out under overpasses in Lake City. So many that the Seattle neighborhood has its own task force on homelessness. But this is a task force that helps turn words into action.

John, a Vietnam veteran who lived on the streets of Lake City for 15 years, says it’s “scary” to move into his own apartment.  He hopes he will find camaraderie in his new apartment building where 38 of the 75 units are reserved for homeless vets.

"The thing is to have people become a family here and not 75 individuals," John told Keith Ervin of The Seattle Times. "It's important that people watch out for each other."

John’s sentiments remind me of Stan, who I met outside the Seattle Center last weekend after attending a session on homelessness at the Guiding Lights weekend conference. The session, presented by Bill Block, project director of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County, volunteer and author Judy Lightfoot and homeless advocate Joe Ingram, highlighted the number of homeless people in Seattle and King County, and how we as individuals can relate to them person-to-person.