A Christian Place Magazine has taken a strong interest in helping the homeless.
With as many as 700 people homeless in Ontario, California
during a census count 2000, 2/3 of these being children, something needs to be
done. A program to help find housing for homeless can be creative as well as
practical. First if we can get each church to adopt one family to help every
3 months this would help spread the burden. How will the church adopt a family? This can be done in a variety of ways based on the churchs ability. Maybe a church
or group of churches could rent an apartment for the program. We could look to get grant money to pay for the rent or donations from the congregation or apartment complex. In all cases the family would not be moving in to any of these premises. They simply will be staying their during the 3 mos case management. The case management would consist of seeing where the needs are. Each case is different yet some things are similar.
The adults in a family may be working but the job may not pay enough. If
this is the case then we need to increase the skill in order to increase the income.
If child care is an issue we can look for free child care programs. If
this is not possible then we can train mothers to start their own childcare. This
will provide an income as well as allow her to stay with her children. There
are plenty of working mothers out there in need of child care. Some cases
may be an illness or pregnancy where longer transitional help may be needed if this is the case we can work with other programs
to provide transitional housing for up to a year. In some of the cases where
we will need case managers we can also train our own homeless adult who shows the ability to actually become a case manager. This will provide a job and a compassionate
worker. The program will state and provisions must be made to show that the homeless
person or family is not in a landlord tenant situation. They cannot receive mail at such address they must have mail sent to the a program or PO box. They will be considered visitors or clients. There will be drug and alcohol testing. Those who smoke cigarettes will be given kits such as patches to help quit smoking. No smoking will be allowed in any
of the apartments. This is
required since children will be staying in these places and smoking would be
considered bad for the childrens health.
We are also looking into hotels who can adopt one homeless family or the church could put a family in a hotel if the
apartment is considered to risky. If it is too much for one church to do some
of the work several smaller churches could ban together to do the work. There
is much more to the program but this is a simple brief of our hopes to accomplish. We
hope to collaborate with the churches, Community organizations, and other
programs in the area to network together and utilize each others services. How
can you help? Call us or contact your own church and see if they would participate
in our project. It's going to take all of us to make this work. We dont have the answers but together with Gods
guidance maybe we can find some
Do you know how it feels to
hunger at night,
to send a child to bed hungry,
it just isn't right.
To feel the ache of hunger,
when you're pregnant,
praying Lord feed the unborn
baby which I can't.
To feel your body shake and
energy gone,
yet somehow, one must carry
on.
We take for granted, the food
each day we eat,
but there are those who hunger
daily with no retreat.
A bowl of rice or a glass
of milk is luxury to them,
but here people complain,
"rice and beans again?"
Be grateful for all you have,
no matter where you are,
for there are those who have
so much less yet go so far.
Be happy when money is tight,
when light are cut off,
at least for you there is
hope and God provides enough,
He provides your every need
and sends people to help you through,
know that without God there
is nothing you can do.
But with God's Word, He can
feed you both body and soul,
fix your eyes on Jesus, make
serving God your number one goal.
No matter what is going on
in your life today,
know that with God, He will
make a way.
For those less fortunate,
maybe you too can give,
maybe God can send you to
help others, so they can live.
THINK ABOUT IT.
