“It’s their choice.”
Because poor life choices can lead to homelessness, people tend to think that homeless people chose their situation. I can remember a time in my own life when we were young and dumb and struggling to raise our young children. I can remember writing a check to cover a check to cover a shortage until payday. A lot of us have found ourselves having more month than money at some time or another and have lived a paycheck, maybe two away from homelessness. If not for parents with the means to lend us a hand, we might have been in the same situation.
“If they had a place, they wouldn’t take care of it.”
Most people we’ve housed are excited to show you what they’ve done with the place. They are wanting a chance to prove themselves, sometimes to themselves. I know one lady who we’ve housed who displays her cooking of Facebook, proud of her accomplishments and enjoying her life.
Scheduling a visit or dropping by to see how they’re doing is a case management tool to ensure they are using their life skills to manage things.
“They just cause problems and make a big mess wherever they go.”
If you apply the 80/20 principle to this, 20% of the homeless people cause 80% of the problems/mess and 80% of the homeless people cause 20% of the problems/mess. Every Thursday morning, a volunteer crew of homeless men from Oroville Rescue Mission don orange vests, armed with trash bags and grabbers and clean up trash around the intersection of Lincoln and Myers Streets in Oroville. One Thursday a month we choose another intersection or parking lot in Oroville to focus our efforts on. The men enjoy it. They actually look forward to Thursday morning. It’s not about the trash we pick up, but about modeling responsibility and involvement in bettering their community.
