Heart, Mind and Soul – Part 1: Jeff’s Story

This is the first in a series of posts about where the solutions to homelessness truly begin.  They are not in the opportunities, training or services offered to homeless people.  They are in the hearts, minds and souls of the homeless themselves. The longer I spend in ministry with these amazing people, the more I learn of the importance of attitude and that nothing else we do to address their challenges will work if their hearts, minds and souls are not in the right place.

The young man was frustrated, scared and angry.  We’ll call him Jeff. His eyes were fixed on mine in a steady gaze as he recounted his recent trials.  He had made mistakes and served time for them.  Now he was on parole.  Despite diligently looking for a steady job, work was inconsistent. For the most part, he was getting by, but sometimes had some slow weeks. 

Jeff’s inconsistent pay made it difficult to get a place of his own.  He had been living with his mother, paying rent, until she moved to a new apartment.  For reasons he didn’t explain, he couldn’t move to the new place with his mother, but she had arranged for him to keep the apartment she had left for a few more weeks – or so he thought. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way.  While he thought he had three weeks left in the apartment, he came home two nights before to find all of his stuff in the hallway of the building.  After scrounging to find a place to put his stuff, he spent a couple of chilly nights on the street.  Needless to say he didn’t get much sleep, which didn’t help his mood.

Now he was worried that he had no address, which is required when you’re on parole.  Fortunately he had a good parole officer who knew he was trying to do things right and would cut him some slack.  He could get by a few days with no address and avoid a return trip to jail.

I named a couple of agencies Jeff could turn to.  He had already been to them and said they told him he would have to wait over a year to get a place under their affordable housing programs. He named several other agencies in the city he had turned to, but none could help him find a room to rent, much less an affordable apartment.  A mental health agency spent lots of time asking him about his childhood and his relationship with his parents.  He answered all their questions but didn’t feel he got any real help from them

“How is analyzing my childhood going to put a roof over my head?”  he asked as he stood up from the bench and paced in agitation.  “I’m trying.  I’m trying hard, and it seems every time I turn around, something else bad happens.”

Jeff’s story is typical of what we hear on the street.  Everyone I know who has made it off the street can’t count how many times they were shot down before they finally had success.  Sometimes they knocked themselves down by pushing their self-destruct buttons, but often circumstances beyond their control sent them back to the streets.

After 25 years of hearing stories of setbacks and successes, I have discovered two virtues that lie at the core of people who make it off the streets: perseverance and focus. Every homeless person I know who found housing never stopped trying and focused on that goal like a laser beam.  Even though they got knocked down over and over again, they picked themselves up and kept pressing forward.  They knew where they wanted to be, and they resolved to do whatever it took, whether it was work a job they hated, stay on the street longer to save money or continue to take advantage of free food, clothes and other services in order to attain their goal of a roof over their heads.

These virtues come from God or from within ourselves.  We can’t magically transplant perseverance and focus into somebody, but there are things we can do to help people discover them.