Humanity | Caring
Do You Have Friends Who Lost Their Housing?
Odds are High that You Do
The cold is like an animal here, but not just any animal. It’s a T-Rex with a mouth as wide as a cave, screaming cold into your bones until you freeze. It’s the Snow Queen, icing your heart solid while your body ices around it. The cold perches on your chest like a wolf, draining you of all defense and forcing you to shiver and hunt for the nearest blanket. That’s the cold we live with in the Upper Midwest.
That cold is bearable for those of us who have warm kitchens, beds and fireplaces. It might even be something you seek out if you want to spend the day skiing or snowmobiling. If you have no choice about being outside, though, it’s a very different story. As January winds grow defiantly stronger, I can’t help but think about the people who don’t have anywhere to go.
I met a woman I’ll call Donna some years ago. She had not had a place to live for a year. Donna stayed in shelters where she could barely sleep because of well-founded fears of her possessions being stolen. Luckily, she found a community college program that allowed her to live at a care community while she was training to be a certified nursing assistant. She was also able to live at that community as an employee with reduced rent.
I interviewed Donna for a newsletter at my workplace, and found her to be funny, lively, kind and unfailingly positive. Her story inspired me and I was honored to write it. Yet, a few months later, creditors from her former life descended on her and hounded her mercilessly. Donna fled the area and I was never able to discover where she went.
For years, I drove to work on a street where a tent city was perched on patchy median grass in the center of the roadway. Most of the people were young and I could frequently see them talking with each other. It seemed there were strong friendships among the group and people who looked out for each other.
The young men and women I saw on the median made me think about a nonprofit that served homeless youth, which hired me to write articles about the work going on there. The development director shared art created by teenagers who couch surfed at friends’ houses or slept in parks.
I interviewed several teens at the nonprofit offices, which included a clinic, showers, clothes, a kitchen and counseling and educational resources. I was struck by the persistence and sensitivity of the young people I met. They were the opposite of whatever stereotypes were living in my head about unhoused youth. In summer, the organization held ceremonies for those who graduated high school. I couldn’t help but wish there were more organizations like this one — because there are so many kids who need them.
Late last fall, I passed the median I’d driven by countless times on the way to work, but all the tents and people were gone. I have no idea where they went or what happened, though I assume the local government had a hand in moving them.
Like most of you reading this article, I have also seen people with signs about being unhoused and broke — people broken by the system. The dollars I share with them seem inadequate at best, but too often, I don’t know what else to do.
The cold persists, because that is what cold is supposed to do; that’s its job. As it spreads throughout the city, questions keep popping into my head. I am remembering a time when, as a newly single mother, I worried about money almost constantly — and was lucky enough to have child support and a part-time job to pay the bills. Still, I often felt like a parade of bills was arriving, day after day after day. Those bills never stop.
Driving home from errands yesterday, I heard a news story about the number of people without housing in my city. It was way more than I thought it would be, and a CEO of an emergency family shelter said most of the people they serve have full-time jobs. I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
My county alone is 15,000 units short of affordable housing. What that means is you can still work full time but not be able to afford a place to live.
I don’t want this to be a rant and if I do have an agenda, it isn’t to ask for money. What I want is to share the human side of what it means to be unhoused.
I want to tell you about the friend I know who lost a job, an apartment and a relationship and then had nowhere to go. Another friend lost his home after becoming too ill to work.
We are supposed to be plunging to subzero temperatures today. Where do you sleep if your family doesn’t have a home? What do you do if your family has to split up because there isn’t room for everyone to stay together?
What I’m trying to sort out here is the difference between how we think about people who are unhoused and people with housing. We may think people who have trouble paying their bills have addictions or mental illnesses, and that can certainly be true. Yet, many are working at full-time jobs and lose an apartment due to rising rents and the inability to pay them.
What do the experts say about how to get more affordable housing? The story I heard yesterday recommended the following steps:
· Donate
· Advocate for more affordable housing
· Help a neighbor who is struggling
These are all things many people are trying to do, but don’t they seem crazy inadequate? Doesn’t it scare you to death to think about what you would do if your housing went away? Why is there so little we can do about it?
I found some answers in statistics from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, outlined in an NPR story. What I discovered is the number of people nationwide who don’t have housing is at record levels, with 650,000 people living in shelters, tents or cars. That number is a twelve percent increase over the previous year. The reason is clear according to national advocates.
There aren’t enough homes that are affordable. Rents have been climbing higher and higher since the pandemic. According to everything I read, the shortage of affordable housing isn’t slight; it’s massive.
Experts do believe housing shortages are solvable — provided Congress can be moved to care. At this time, only one in four people who are eligible for federally subsidized housing receives it. Expanding the number of available housing units means we need more funding from Congress.
Maybe the place to start is to talk with lawmakers. I’m going to ask representatives and senators in my district because I can’t not do it at this point. Because the people losing their homes today could be me, or I could be them, or any of us. It’s just too cold out there not to ask — not only physically, but emotionally too.
And if we don’t ask?
No one will.
