The people who help people find shelter have found ways to resist feeling they are running a race with no finish line.
"You just maintain — that's the word," said Blain Narramore, housing coordinator for Special Health Resources of Texas in Longview and Tyler. "You just maintain what you do because there's never a happy ending where you say, 'We're done.' "
Kevin Green/News-Journal Photo |
From left: Helen Johnson executive director of House of Hope; Eric Burger, executive director of Hiway 80 Rescue Mission; and Doris Ramaly, executive director of Longview Interfaith Hospitality Network, are working to collect backpacks and blankets for the homeless.
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Narramore and a host of local caregivers for homeless people hope others will join the race, especially from Nov. 15 to 21 during National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week.
Members of the North East Texas Homeless Coalition, a loose network of agencies that feed and house people in need, are collecting backpacks and blankets as winter nears. Collections will take place Nov. 16 to 20 at the Downtown Coffee Shop operated by the Arc of Gregg County at 107 E. Tyler St.
"It's a way the community can show that they care," Coalition President Doris Ramaly said. "Everybody needs something they can call their own. (The backpack) is so they have something to carry things in, and (they need) to have a blanket when it's cold, a blanket to call their own."
Donors can buy backpacks and/or blankets at any store. There are no specifications for what's accepted, and gently used items are OK, she said.
Ramaly, who is the executive director of the Longview Interfaith Hospitality Network, agreed it's likely there always will be families in need of a shelter that will allow them to stay together. That seemingly endless need can be a weight, she said.
"Yeah, I get discouraged, but I don't let that define my helping," she said. "Because, I like to give people hope. And, in my particular job there's 65 volunteers, and I'm sure we all get discouraged. But, you know that every day we're making a difference. We're making a difference."
She also notices that most of her peers don't let the caregiver's blues stop them from staying on task for years.
"In our area, I've noticed at the meetings that those that work with the homeless have not given up," she said. "It's not like we have a high turnover in our job."
Narramore, whose clients in two counties are HIV positive in addition to being homeless, said he keeps on because he loves what he does.
"My mom said I was always a goody-two-shoes," he said. "There are some days you get cranky, but you just do the best you can. ... The payoff? You go home at night and feel like you accomplished something."
For "Sister" Helen Johnson, founder and director of the House of Hope women's shelter, faith is a shield against feeling disheartened.
"When we get discouraged we just depend on God," Johnson said, citing a recent stretch of more than a week the shelter had no meat. "Even on those days the staff and I don't get discouraged. ... That's what keeps us from getting discouraged, is God. I'm sure we would (without Him). We do have a heavy load here."
Like Ramaly, Johnson also sees tangible evidence the race is being won, one homeless woman at a time — more than four out of five women helped in Johnson's four years here are in jobs, homes and living drug-free.
"That is diminishing the homeless situation," she said. "They have jobs or homes or have been restored with families. Approximately 82 percent of those women are doing well. We can show you our files."
The director of the Hiway 80 Rescue Mission, Eric Burger, said the sight of people turning their lives around keeps his engines revved for the race. Burger's West Marshall Avenue complex includes a church, kitchen, education rooms including a new computer lab, and 170 beds.
"When you pour your life into a person, and you see that person make a change and accept Christ ... every day, I focus on those (instances)," he said. "I don't focus on, necessarily, how many people we're dealing with."
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If you help
- What: Backpacks and Blankets drive for homeless people
- When: Nov. 16 to 20
- Where: Drop off donations at Downtown Coffee Shop, 107 E. Tyler St.
- Contact: Call (903) 234-8343
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The ultimate goal
The executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless says homelessness cannot be eliminated, in just one community.
"It's kind of like saying it would be possible to suck all the air out of a cubic yard in a field," Director Neil Donovan said. "And, of course not. So, if you're in a community and you're trying to solve homelessness, you're not."
He insisted, however, that homelessness can be defeated in the national arena.
"I have never woke up in the morning thinking I'm not going to solve this problem," Donovan said from the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the coalition, a nonprofit partnership of service providers and advocates for homeless people. "Crazy, huh? I think I'm very sane."
The coalition's mission statement is clear here: the goal is to end homelessness.
"We've had homeless people since before we had cities," he said. "There is a distinction between responding to an individual losing their home and a country that's obsessed with homeless people. We are going to be able to solve the larger social illness of homelessness, which will prepare us to address the immediate need of people losing their housing."
That is, at Donovan's national level, the coalition believes defeating the social ills that cause people to be chronically homeless will solve that half of the puzzle.
A chronically homeless person is defined, by the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, as someone having a disabling condition who has been without a home for either a full year or four times in the past three years.
Success at eliminating chronic homelessness will free up resources to help prevent homeowners from losing their house from some financial disaster like loss of a job or illness, Donovan said.
"The issue we have to address first is solving long-term homelessness," he said. "And when we do that, we'll be relieved of this great burden and be left to respond to the immediate need of the recently homeless, or in a better world preventing it."
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Feature film
As part of National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, Nov. 15 to 21, a feature film highlighting homelessness will be shown at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the ROC facility at Longview First Baptist Church. Popcorn, candy and drinks will be provided free.
