A year on the homeless beat
Most people are a check or two from being homeless.
We've all seen that quote in a variety of places. I'm not sure it's quite true but it's close....in my case, too close.
A year ago I outed myself as being homeless by writing this. Tonight the shelter where I lived, Lincoln Park Community Shelter is celebrating their 30th anniversary and the publishing of a book, which I and a group of great people helped put together. I figured the two anniversaries would be a good time to recap the year, end the series and move on to another topic or two. And then I saw this:
"Ending Homeless to me means ensuring every person has a safe and stable home for themselves and their families."- Meghan Freebeck.
Meghan worked at LPCS during the time I was there. I've been thinking about her quote a lot in the last ten days. It's an admirable and lofty goal. Recently, I've run into a couple of people who went from homelessness to stable homes and back to homelessness again. It's heart tugging to see that but it's not uncommon...far from it. There's a very fine line between being in a stable home and being out in the street.
One of the goals of this series was to raise awareness that there isn't a typical homeless person. You can never tell anything about a person's situation just by looking at him or her. But there are still so many stories I didn't get a chance to tell.
Issues with lack of affordable housing. Seniors are losing housing because owners want to make more money. How are government cutbacks affecting shelters? Will cuts in the food stamp program force people to make a decision on housing vs feeding their families? What's it like to be homeless in another city? Volunteering.
Plus I want to follow up on some of the other stories. I need to know how some lives are turning out...for better or worse.
There's just so much to talk about so why not do it? Raising awareness is a good thing, right? Plus as a writer, I have to admit, it's a really juicy topic (Hey, I'm not totally selfless).
So it's on to year two on the homeless beat. I ended my first piece on the topic by mentioning I was thankful I had a bed. A year later I still have a bed, but this year it's my own.
Click on the link and you can find the entire first year of Faces Of Homelessness.
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