On July 4, 2007, I met Barack and Michelle Obama with two hundred other people in Oskaloosa, Iowa. I thanked him for “giving us hope” and he smiled and moved on. When Michelle shook my hand, I told her that my greatest concern was that housing is so central to children’s well being, and I looked forward to an Obama Administration which understands that basic truth and can implement policies which prevent children from ever having to become homeless. She urged me to keep pressing that message.
Fast-forward to March 11, 2009: today I am nominating this organization as the unofficial cheerleaders for implementation of President Obama’s $22 million Homelessness Prevention Fund here in Philadelphia. We have the right name, the right mission, no financial stake in the funding as well as 25 years of lessons learned pursuing our mission. We have long supported the evidence-based approach of prevention, shelter diversion and rapid-rehousing, all accompanied by voluntary services!
Today, we stand in the doorway of making my hope into reality because of the Obama Stimulus package which includes $22 million for Philadelphia to prevent children, their families and other adults from suffering homelessness.
In any and every way that I and this organization can, we will work to support the city in realizing the potential that this funding represents. Now that we have the means, creative minds can design the method to keep families and individuals out of shelter altogether or help them rapidly return to safe and affordable homes.
The evidence is so painfully clear that homelessness harms all people -- but the visible and invisible damage to children – must end. At the same time, families should not be afraid to seek help when they are living in unfit and unsafe homes – afraid to go into shelter because they fear for their children’s safety.
Over these years, the federal government has sent “challenging” mandates to local jurisdictions; Philadelphia, like others, has struggled, in good faith, to meet those mandates. But they never had the potential to eliminate the need for shelter by focusing on housing as we have before us now.
I was a cheerleader MANY years ago in a high school with a total student population of 36, but I remember some of the old moves...Sis boom bah ... whadda we want now? Housing, housing, housing! Or prevention, diversion and rapid re-housing, YEAH!
