Faith Works: Thirty years of change and continuity at Licking County Coalition for Housing
Last week while so many were thinking about state funerals and distant royalty, I had to address the obvious theme for faith communities around memorial services here and the effects of what’s going on “over there.”
My thoughts, though, were actually intending to stay closer to home, and meditating on the last thirty years: specifically since Sept. 18, 1992.
The day before that I sat down with two other intrepid incorporators, and let me pause to note Karen Bunning & I would honor the memory of Marie Kerns who was regal in her own right, but no longer with us.
We three signed incorporation papers which Deb Tegtmeyer then hand carried to Columbus, where then Secretary of State Bob Taft made official on the 18th of September the still developing structure of the Licking County Coalition for Housing, now more often called simply “LCCH.”
By Thanksgiving week we had three families in transitional housing and a budget made up of baling wire and bubble gum; thirty years later we’re a little more stable but tied closely to HUD grants and state support for programs that all allow us to improve and enhance the stability of housing for people at risk for homelessness.
We weren’t, and still aren’t an emergency shelter organization; there are others doing that work, and we all have needs still, but the impetus of getting a transitional housing program going in 1990 & 1991 was that we just didn’t have any place to house folks coming out of emergency shelter type housing. Data then and now shows that people are much less likely to return to emergency shelter if there’s a solid transitional housing program for them to work through on their way back to independence and stability for their own living arrangements.
After a number of ideas and proposals that are amusing to recall today, a group of community leaders and agency staff members working with housing came up with a plan for transitional housing, a coalition of partners and participants who could come up with a number of locations, cover the staffing and the upkeep, and give people a chance to live securely after having been homeless. We found a landlord who would let our motley crew lease four units to sublet, so to speak, and thirty years later we now own a few dozen units and continue to lease others, assisting forty some families and over twice that many individuals to have a stable residence while they work out their transition to independence . . . hence, transitional housing.
Over the last few years, unsheltered homelessness has gotten more public attention, and even a little controversy around how we can best respond as a community to the needs of people who are unhoused. I’ve talked to some of the folks who are concerned about how our network of response works, and hope to have more to say on that subject soon, but those have been positive and fruitful conversations. Everyone agrees that homelessness is a problem, but when it comes to what people who are homeless should do, or how a city or county might respond, I’ve learned over the last thirty years there is lots of room for disagreement.
What I’ve also learned, in our area and in travels and communication with other locations that struggle with some of the same issues, is that there are well-tested means by which we can increase the rate of people NOT returning to emergency shelter. That’s the primary goal. You might be surprised to learn I’m not a fan of the phrase “end homelessness” because the reality is that as generations come and go, and people mature and face challenges, at any given time any community is going to have people at risk of becoming homeless. Our goal has to be ensuring that people only go through that once if at all possible, that almost anyone can end up in a jam and find themselves in a tough spot, but they don’t have to keep ending up in the same place.
LCCH has been most successful, I believe, in helping those who come to us for assistance get to where they can not only help themselves, but they also find themselves wanting to help others. The most interesting part of being connected to an organization that’s now been helping people for three decades is how often I have someone pull me aside to say quietly “LCCH helped me when I was without a home, and that made all the difference.” And they’re often volunteers today in helping others.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s not sure he really intended to admit he’s been around for over thirty years, but there you are. Tell him what you think would make a difference in our communities at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Faith Works: Thirty years of change and continuity
