Volunteers, Stop Saying You are a Family to the Abandoned Poor: It Devalues Families and Misses The Cause of Homelessness
Every time I walked in the front door, I would say a little prayer that the heat was still emanating from the radiators. I would flip on the light switch, half expecting to have no electricity. I hadn’t paid the electric or heating bills in months, and I knew that any day my utilities would be cut off. My constant battles with sepsis, amputation, and blood clots made it so that I was unable to work, I didn’t have adequate health insurance, and the bills kept piling up. In between hospital stays, I was recovering in my bed, often immobile from the last amputation. Luckily, I live in a close-knit neighborhood, and friends offered to walk my kids to and from school, and often dropped off meals so that I wouldn’t have to cook. They even cleaned my apartment, and scrubbed my fridge. Still, it was a struggle to maintain independence in my one-bedroom apartment that I shared with my two kids.
There were a couple kind and generous souls who offered to shelter me and my children temporarily, until I could get back on my feet.
I turned down their repeated offers.
It’s not that I wasn’t grateful. And it’s not that I didn’t love the people making the offers.
It was something else entirely. And the choices I made at the time shape how I understand the people who enter SREHUP, Philadelphia’s student-run homeless shelter that I founded, when they are at their most vulnerable.
I refused the offers for shelter because at the time, my life felt totally out of my control. My health, my work, my finances, my very life, seemed in free fall. The one thing that I could control was my dignity and a modicum of independence, and I held onto it with every fiber in my body. It was a matter of self-preservation, really. To give up my apartment which represented independence to me, was to admit defeat. In addition, I didn’t want to burden those I loved the most.
So, despite how difficult it was for me and my children, we stayed in that apartment, and I accepted the help that I could, on my own terms.
I was abandoned, but not by those tasked with loving me. I was abandoned by a system of inaccessible healthcare, a system of poor wages, the devaluation of labor, the high cost of housing, and a political system that favors profit over people.
This week I was reminded of how strongly I clung to my fading independence when I met with the grieving cousin of a man named Jay who recently died. Jay stayed at my shelter when he was homeless, and became an incredibly important person in my life. I recently wrote about him and his legacy in an artcile in Medium.
She found my TEDx talk where I spoke about Jay’s significant challenges, and she was shocked and saddened to hear how truly vulnerable he had been. What struck her was that Jay had family that he could turn to for help. She sobbed as she asked me: why did he turn to a complete stranger for help, when his family would have taken him in? I explained that I thought it was easier for Jay to turn to strangers than to his family for help. I think Jay, like me, was stubborn and prideful, and embarrassed about his own weaknesses. He acknowledged that he needed help, and that it would take a village to get him back on his feet. But he was determined to receive that help on his terms. That meant turning to a village that was not his kin, a village that did not come with the pre-packed emotional baggage.
It is not, I assured her, because he did not love his family, or recognize their ability and desire to help him.
This is an important message for both volunteers, and for family members of those who are vulnerable and homeless.
When volunteers come to SREHUP, they often ask me: don’t these people have families? Why won’t their families take them in? The question is grounded in the belief that if these people had family, they would obviously turn to them rather than the shelter. This belief is so embedded in our culture, that Bethesda Project, one of Philadelphia’s main homeless service providers, explains their mission as: “to find and care for the abandoned poor and to be family with those who have none.”
While I agree with the premise that the poor have been abandoned, I oppose the notion that this abandonment is primarily from their family members.
To be sure, there are people experiencing homelessness who have been abandoned by their families. This is most often the case for LGBTQ Youth, who report ostracism when they revealed their sexuality or gender identity to their families. 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ. Youth who have aged out of foster care also often report feeling abandoned by family.
But other people experiencing homelessness, especially the working poor, whose ranks amongst the homelessness are growing, DO in fact have family who have not abandoned them. This population makes up the largest segment of the homeless population. These people are often hidden from public view. They are in shelters, or couch surfing, or in abandoned cars or buildings. These people are often highly functional. Many have jobs. They don’t fit the stereotype of those experiencing homelessness. But with the rising cost of housing, and the decades-long wage stagnation, they cannot afford rent. Often the reason that they are staying at our shelter, rather than with their family members, is because family members of the homeless are often living in poverty themselves, and do not have the resources to support extra bodies to feed and shelter. In addition, the majority of Philadelphia’s poor are renting their homes, and to house extra people would be a violation of their lease, and could result in eviction and homelessness for the renting family member.
Furthermore, when you are homeless and struggling, it is often easier to accept help from strangers than from family, especially in a society where we are conditioned to feel shame when we need help. This is not how it is in all cultures. When I traveled throughout Palestine, I learned that there is virtually NO homelessness in the West Bank. I visited many homes in which several families or generations of a family lived in tight quarters, and shared limited resources, such as water. And yet, it would go against Palestinian culture for family members to fend for themselves. In cultures where independence is prized, like in the US, we are more apt to see people resist burdening their families in times of trouble. We would rather burden a stranger than someone whose love and acceptance we hold dear. And our need for independence is often essential, especially when control of everything else in life seems just beyond our reach.
These factors are important when considering the role of family, and of volunteers, in working with people who are vulnerable. To assume that the vulnerable have no family, is not only a misconception, but creates more pain for the family of the homeless, and misrepresents the role of the volunteer. The volunteer must serve those in their care, while always keeping the dignity of those they serve as the first priority. Further, when we locate the cause of homelessness in the abandonment of family, rather than inhumane systems and fraying safety nets, we mistakenly think our role in ameliorating the suffering caused by homelessness is to serve as a family member for someone who has none. But that is not our role. Our role is to strengthen community, yes. But not at the sacrifice of the families of the homeless.
If we are to end homelessness, we must see our primary role as the adjustment of policies and structures. Do not claim to be family for those who have none. Do not claim that the homeless have been abandoned by their families. This is often inaccurate. They have been abandoned by something far greater: a system of inequality where profit is privileged over people. We must change this, so that all families and people can maintain dignity and pride. And volunteers can create something lasting and sustainable for the homeless and their families: a strong and intentional community, in which we are all brothers and sisters in justice.
