Where Are They Now?

Shelter Beds at Immanuel Congregational Church, Hartford CT

This photo haunts me. How are the Hartford area homeless families that once slept in these beds coping today? Where are they? Where is home? 

On a freezing February 11, 2020, one of the fifteen Tuesday nights from this past December through March that Hartford's Immanuel Congregational Church volunteered as an overflow shelter during the coldest months of the year, I paused to take this photo of the shelter's "bedroom." The photo's image has stuck in my mind ever since. An Immanuel teammate and I had just set up Hartford Fire Department supplied cots in the church chapel, covering them neatly with fresh, clean sheets and pillows, and warm blankets. The converted chapel would sleep twelve members of homeless families that night. Where are they now? How are they?  Where is home?

In November 2019, with Hartford's citywide shelter system rightly anticipating being pushed beyond capacity, Immanuel Congregational Church leadership answered the city's call for help. It rallied eighty church members and friends to volunteer hosting an ad hoc shelter with the express purpose of serving overflow homeless families: parents, teenagers, and toddlers unable to secure shelter anywhere else in the Hartford. 

Championed by church members Nancy Rion and Barbara Shaw (no relation), the Immanuel team was one of several Hartford faith communities committing one night a week during the winter to host homeless families. Its mission was to welcome, feed, and house stressed and confused families desperately seeking warmth, comfort, and nourishment. Homeless families swallow their pride moving from one place to another night after night, eating dinner with strangers, sleeping in crowded lodgings, accepting their surroundings silently, all the while tearfully hoping for a miracle. Their stories are complex, heartbreaking, and compelling.

With the current COVID-19 crisis mandates to stay home and maintain social (physical) distancing, the participating faith communities closed their volunteer shelters mid-March. Wreaking countrywide havoc, the pandemic is affecting our lives in ways never imagined. Thousands of individuals and families heretofore living within relatively stable and secure comfort now face the daunting, if not overwhelming, challenges of finding food, employment, childcare, housing, and healthcare. The homeless are even more vulnerable. So, what do we do?

We need to learn from this critical moment engulfing our world. We need to learn what's truly important in life. We need to learn the importance of dignity, equality, and respect. We need to learn to share our world's abundance. We need to learn the importance of healing healthcare for everyone.  We need to learn how to help others help themselves. We need to recognize that everyone has a personal story of a real life filled with the hopes and dreams most of us share, and most of all to be accepted and pursue a purposeful life.

While I may be haunted by the photo of the empty beds, and thoughts of the safety and well being of the homeless we served, I believe we all need to step up and learn how to build a better world. How do we begin? Consider the words of my friend Rev. Dennis P. (Denny) Moon, Senior Minister, South Congregational Church of Granby CT; "Living in our society isn't just about individual rights, but also the common good. In order to understand the common good, you must enter into the suffering of others."

Don Shaw, Jr.
Director Emeritus, Hartford Area Habitat for Humanity

RedTruckStonecatcher.com

Indifference Helps the Oppressor, Never the Oppressed

A sign at a march on the Connecticut state capitol, March 24, 2018.

Indifference manifests itself in ignorance, silence and blind acceptance. Turning our backs to the injustices suffered by the marginalized, vulnerable, and victimized in our local communities and around the world is a weak and heartless admission that the status quo is just fine with us when it doesn't affect our lives directly -- at least not yet. And that's a very big "yet" because unchecked turmoil can arrive anytime at our doorsteps regardless of who we think we are.

"It is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, to your own group. You must respond with love even to those outside of it. ...This concept enables people to live together not as nations, but as the human race." These words of Clarence Jordan, scholar, author, activist, and founder of Koinonia Farm, are his charge to all of us to follow a path of love, acceptance, and respect.

Let's face reality. The other, the stranger, the not-of-my-kind are real people, not abstractions. Each has a story -- a personal story of a real life, filled the with the kinds of hopes and dreams most of us share in wanting to be accepted, and allowed to live in peace and pursue a purposeful life.

A wall plaque at Habitat for Humanity's Atlanta, GA headquarters quoting Clarence Jordan

The challenge is to move us from uncaring indifference, or gratuitous caring with no commitment, to making a genuinely positive difference, large or small, however we are able. We must move from ignoring today's reality to facing it head-on. We must take a stand, and turn ignorance into awareness and action.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel fought relentlessly against the force of indifference. It's dangerous. It's deadly. In his December 10, 1986, Nobel Prize acceptance speech Wiesel said,

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe." 

Let's face reality. Let's take a stand. Let's make a difference. Today and always.

Don Shaw, Jr.


* This post is adapted from one of my previous posts. 

Life Saving Diversions at St. Elizabeth House

St. Elizabeth House, 118 Main Street, Hartford, CT,
home of Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation's Diversion Center.

Waiting for the door to open, people are lined up as many as forty deep on a typical weekday morning at St. Elizabeth House's main entrance. They are our neighbors in crisis hoping for support once inside. In imminent danger of being swallowed into the downward cycle of homelessness, they are seeking a life saving diversion from living on the street. This is their reality. And it's just a small glimpse of their daily reality that I saw on my recent visit to St. Elizabeth's. I was there to learn first-hand about Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation's innovative program to divert people away from becoming homeless.

Twenty months ago on July 5, 2016, Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation (Mercy) welcomed its first clients to its newly created Diversion Center at St. Elizabeth House on Main Street in Hartford. Faced with diminishing federal and state financial support for Mercy's long-established transitional housing programs, Executive Director Dave Martineau, now retired, and current ED Judith Gough led a nine month multi-organization collaboration to develop an aggressive "up front" program designed to immediately divert people away from homelessness --- people who are on the brink of having to survive minute to minute alone with no place to go. "This program enhances Mercy's ability to prevent a person from becoming homeless before their situation spins into a full-blown, life threatening crisis," Executive Director Gough told me.

Throughout its thirty-five year old mission of providing housing assistance and supportive services to persons who are homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless, Mercy has prided itself as being on the forefront of creating workable community solutions. Simple and direct, the Diversion Center's goal is to find its clients safe, stable housing rapidly. The Center's reach is wide. It provides services in what's organized as the Greater Hartford Coordinated Area Network, which, in addition to Hartford and its surrounding towns, includes Enfield, Manchester, East Hartford, Ellington, and Tolland.

"Nearly thirty percent of people in this situation [of being homeless] can be diverted from this tragic outcome with minimal mediation," according to Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness workshops. "Often the solution can be overcome with little or no money to reverse the events leading to homelessness," saving Hartford and Connecticut thousands of dollars.

According to Stephanie Corbin, Mercy's Shelter Diversion Coordinator, the diversion process is best described as highly responsive "front door triage." It provides personalized solutions with accompanying emotional support aimed at mitigating the problems leading to a client's crisis. It's all accomplished at the Center in centralized coordination with several Hartford based agencies serving the homeless, including Journey Home, the Salvation Army, Community Health Resources, and the City of Hartford. Corbin emphasized that the key to successful client outcomes is case manager creativity.  The solution for each client must address the direct question, "What do we need to do right now to keep you out of the shelter system?"

Stephanie Corbin (L), Shelter Diversion Coordinator, conducts a case
conferencing session with case managers (L-R) Jackie Florez, Shefia Ibrahim,
and Latoya Smith to review recommendations for each client.

To counsel people in crisis quickly and directly, a collaborative team of case managers from Mercy, the Salvation Army, and Community Health Resources staff the Center every week. People seeking the Center's support first call the 211 Infoline, which initially assesses the caller's need for services, and then, as deemed appropriate, schedules an appointment for them to see a Center case manager within 24 to 48 hours. Appointments are scheduled Monday through Friday beginning at 9:00 AM.

A sampling of client-specific crisis resolutions include:

• Arranging a family intervention allowing a teenager to seek redemption and return home after being kicked out for unacceptable behavior.
• Working with a family facing eviction because of an unresolved rent dispute with their landlord. 
• Working with a family being evicted for violating a rental agreement by housing non-family members.
• Assisting a client with short-term financial assistance needed to keep them in good stead with their landlord while they recover from a medical setback.  
• Providing a client with bus or train fare enabling them to reunite and live with family residing in another state.

In addition to crisis resolution assistance, Diversion Center clients may also see a nurse or physician's assistant in the center's medical suite staffed by Charter Oak Health Center, or find respite in St. Elizabeth House's Friendship Center with a healthy meal, or hot shower.

St. Elizabeth's Friendship Center serves a hot lunch prepared on site. 

Opened just twenty months ago, Mercy's Diversion Center is still in its formative stage, yet its results to date are encouraging. In fiscal year 2017, 2,577 individuals were seen by a case manager. During that period 456 were diverted from homelessness, sixty-two of whom were between the ages of 18-24, and 124 required limited financial assistance that helped them avoid homelessness. Further, 1,244 people, whose cases were not readily resolvable, were referred directly to city shelters, and the remaining group were either referred to other area programs, or were deemed ineligible for assistance.

According to Executive Director Gough current demand for the Center's diversion service is showing an increase over last fiscal year. With one full year of experience, and a second well underway, the Diversion Center has charted a path for other agencies serving the homeless to follow, and to improve upon collectively. It's a path the Connecticut Department of Housing strongly endorses. It's a path leading to life saving diversions, or perhaps one could say "Mercy-ful Diversions."

This post was reprinted in the Mercy Housing and Shelter Spring 2018 Newsletter, and in Journey Home Connecticut's Journey Home News Spring 2018.

Don Shaw, Jr.
Writer and Editor
RedTruckStonecatcher.com

Photos by Don Shaw, Jr.

For the Record: I am currently a member of Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation's Board of Trustees. Further, I served as an analyst in developing "Hartford's Plan to End Chronic Homelessness by 2015"; and I represented Hartford Area Habitat for Humanity in the development of a subsequent implementation plan called "Journey Home -- The Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness in the Capitol Region"

Friendship is at the Center

Friendship Center's Dining Room

Saint Elizabeth House

Just over ten years ago I met "Sister Pat." At the time, Patricia M. McKeon, RSM, was executive director of Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation in Hartford. She was my team lead on one of several Hartford Commission to End Homelessness in the Capitol Region committees organized to create the Commission's implementation plan. Our team, comprised of many organizations doing the good work of supporting and serving the homeless, created "strategies to increase supportive housing and affordable housing." I was representing Hartford Area Habitat for Humanity.

Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation is one of those organizations. St. Elizabeth House is one of those good works. St. Elizabeth is a transitional home providing the homeless a path to a better life -- a return to self-sufficiency and independence. 

Two weeks ago, Mercy Housing's Associate Executive Director Judith Gough invited me to tour the just completed renovation of St. Elizabeth House. The work is an impressive testimony to what can be done to create a welcoming place that provides the homeless respect, dignity, and support, along with what I believe is the basic human right to decent, safe shelter. Although Sister Pat retired last year, her presence could be felt throughout the new construction. Her team should be proud to know that a good strategy, implemented by a good organization, can lead to a good result.

Hartford Courant reporter Vinny Vella's article, "A New St. Elizabeth," and Cloe Poisson's photos tell the essential story about what Mercy Housing and Shelter Corporation is doing to make the world a better place.  


Don Shaw, Jr.
Writer and Editor
RedTruckStonecatcher.com

Ending Veteran Homelessness

Zero: 2016 Initiative

"Governor Malloy announced today [February 18, 2016] at the State Armory that Connecticut has ended homelessness among the state's veteran population." So reads the lead sentence in a Partnership for Strong Communities and Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness joint announcement about the success of Connecticut's Zero: 2016 initiative.

Excerpts from the announcement read:

• "The Zero: 2016 initiative is part of a national effort to end veteran homelessness and chronic homelessness, the long-term homelessness of people living with disabilities, by the end of 2016. Connecticut is one of only four states accepted into the effort through its Reaching Home Campaign, the statewide campaign for preventing and ending homelessness in Connecticut."

• "“Ending veteran homelessness,” as defined by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, means that Connecticut has successfully developed a system whereby every veteran who experiences homelessness will be quickly identified and provided appropriate supports and housing."

Tremendous commitment and hard work has led to this truly significant achievement, one to be very much celebrated. However, there is no doubt that much more work is required to reach all the homeless, and walk with them to a life changing opportunity.

Read the joint announcement, and then read Susan Campbell's blog: "About that ending of homelessness in CT...". Her blog puts a real world context around this remarkable achievement.

Don Shaw, Jr.

Writer and Editor

RedTruckStonecatcher.com