Our Clients' Situation

It’s not unusual to find families of five or more dwelling in one room. Usually, these people have jobs, often as day laborers, but what they earn is only enough to cover the costs that night in the motel -- $30 to $40 a day – or to save for the monthly rent.

This leaves little or nothing for other necessities, such as food, clothing, and even school supplies. Because the balancing act of earning just enough to stay off the streets is so precarious, it doesn’t take much of an unforeseeable circumstance to bounce a family back to the shelters or the streets.

The Long Term Solution

All these desperate people dream of being able to get out of this motel trap and into an apartment of their own where they and their children can be safe and stable. An apartment would be less expensive than a motel over the course of a month, but saving up the first-month’s rent and deposit is often not possible for people on the edge.

For families meeting certain criteria, the goal of the Ministry is to synergize with other missions to supply first-month’s rent and deposit, and help them find and furnish an apartment from the Ministry’s food, clothing, and furniture banks.

Through the mayor’s housing initiative, families with children under 18 are still being rescued from the streets and motels to apartment housing. This is one of our greatest joys, to see people get jobs and move their families on into better circumstances.

Holding the Gains

Such life changes don’t just happen, however.

We are actively involved in mentoring these families. The Ministry assigns them trained family mentors to help with the transition and encourage a successful, long-lasting transfer to an apartment.

Mean Street Ministry is looking into the process of building a transitional housing program for these families on the edge, including a ministry-operated housing facility. Such a program would provide temporary, safe housing, and enable the families to save enough money so that they might get out of the cycle of poverty and into an apartment.

Having a ministry-operated facility would also make it easier for Mean Street volunteers to mentor these families until they can be financially stable in an apartment on their own. The dream is to be able to offer counseling, debt management and problem solving, and training in parenting skills, job, and computer skills during the transition to an apartment.

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Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry in the darkness.


Carl Sandburg