"Safe Crisis"

Note: This is the final post in a 3-part series. Read part 1, "Food + Shelter + Job = Hope," and part 2, "Breaking the Cycle."

Shelter is key to helping the homeless.  Obviously, you cannot end homelessness without fixing this primary issue.  As long as a man or woman is concerned about where they are going to lay their head down at night, they cannot move on with anything else in their lives.

However, just any shelter will not do.  It takes more than a roof to provide the basic feelings of stability required to propel someone upward.  The shelter must be clean and safe from the criminal elements that seem to prey on the poor and homeless.

Temporary shelter, however, must indeed be temporary. Let me explain. Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. The same principle can be applied to people.

My experience tells me that people really only change when they are in crisis; so the motivation for change is highest as soon as someone arrives at our shelter.  Once she gets settled, we as staff need to create a sense of “safe crisis” so that our guests stay motivated and moving toward success.

After a day or two to catch their breath and before they have forgotten the pain of being homeless, they must be given hope and encouragement that life can be different.  Far too many people with whom I have the privilege to work have begun to believe that shelter life is as good as it gets for them.  They need to be inspired and shown the way toward success.

We must love them where they are; but also love them too much to let them stay there.  When we do this from the safety of the Crisis Shelter, we can move on to provide the other basics necessary for ending homelessness: food, job and hope.