Homelessness

It is not uncommon for families and children to be homeless; in fact, in a study by Family Promise of Gwinnett, 1 in 18 children are homeless during school years (“Homeless Facts”). It also states that “almost half of  all children dealing with the trauma and stress of homelessness are under 6 years old”. Georgia ranks one of the worst states for homelessness, but Gwinnett County specifically ranks the third highest county in the state, after Fulton and Chatham. Even if you have never experienced homelessness yourself, it is very likely that you have known or met someone who was. However, homelessness is a burden that many people feel ashamed of, and therefore might not openly share this fact with others. Often, people become homeless due to circumstances beyond their control, such as job loss, medical emergencies, or domestic violence. 

Homelessness is a challenging and painful lifestyle, and often many other problems present themselves as a result. Without a stable home life it can be hard to find a job, and even harder to keep it. Then there comes the issue of housing and how difficult it is to be accepted for a loan, mortgage, or even just for a lease on an apartment. With extensive credit checks, background checks, and income checks, the housing process is not ideal for someone with limited resources and credit. Homelessness can have a profound effect on a person's mental and physical health as well. People who are homeless are more likely to suffer from mental health problems like depression and anxiety. They are also more likely to suffer from physical health problems, such as obesity, diabetes, and chronic pain (“National Health”). Children are more susceptible to bad influences at school, or falling behind in their classes. Being homeless affects most, if not all aspects of life, mainly in negative and challenging ways. 

Despite the overwhelming number of homeless people and families in our community, there are many resources and places of help, one of them being an organization called Family Promise. This organization has buildings across the country, but for my interview with Jessica Smith, one of the assistant house managers, I toured the Gwinnett house. 

I walked into the gray stone building, and was immediately hit with the smell of cooking food, not unlike the smell of a school cafeteria. The lobby was pretty sparse, with not much furniture other than a couple of chairs and a small gray desk in the back corner of the room. It was on the second floor, and the sunlight shined in through a huge window by the door. I walked over to the desk, and waited for a few minutes until Jessica walked in from a side door. She smiled and welcomed me warmly. I’d been here once before to volunteer serving meals, but I’d never met her, so we talked for a short while getting to know each other. She led me through the door she came in through, and down a long, narrow hallway  with many doors on either side. It finally opened up into a dining area, with metal chairs and tables lined up perfectly. On the far side of the room I saw the kitchen where I volunteered before; a cafeteria style counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. Three hot meals are served each day, all in this room (Smith). All the tables were vacant, since it was mid-afternoon, but I could tell by the pots clanking and loud voices coming from the kitchen that it would soon be filled to the brim with families eating dinner. 

We continued through the dining room, down another long hall with doors on either side, until she finally took out her keys and opened one of the doors. As I stepped inside I saw that it was a model room. Two sets of bunk beds were lined up against the back wall, with a window in between. The mattresses had navy blue sheets, with one pillow and one quilt folded on the end of the bed. There was a fold out sofa against the other wall, next to a wooden table with four chairs around it. She showed me around the room, eventually leading me to the small closet and bathroom in the corner by the doorway. All in all, the room was very spacious and clean, not as I would have pictured before the tour. Walking back out into the hall, for the first time, I saw a few residents heading to the dining room. A middle aged woman and two children, who I assumed were her son and daughter, laughing and talking happily with each other as they walked. We greeted each other as they passed us in the hallway, and then Jessica took me into her office for the interview.

I sat down across from her in a purple folding chair, and looked around at the contrasting interior from the lobby. There were family photos and coffee mugs that decorated every shelf and table, and even a few rugs on the gray cement floor. As we began to talk, I told her about the volunteer work I had done a few months past in the kitchen, serving meals, and asked about other volunteer opportunities. She then told me that there were many more ways to volunteer, such as being an evening, morning, or an overnight host. The host’s primary job is to socialize with residents, and show the new families around, helping them to feel welcome. There are also opportunities for office workers, who help with paperwork and organization (Smith).  “Our volunteers are the most important members of our organization,” she told me, “without them, we couldn’t do what we do here.” 

Family Promise began in 2003, surprisingly, because of a conversation in a Taco Bell. When Carter McInnis, the associate pastor at Lawrenceville First United Methodist Church, overheard a group of people talking about using places of worship as homeless shelters. He took this idea back to his own church, and the first Day Center was opened just five years later (“Mission”). In my interview with Jessica, she told me that the Family Promise building where we were sitting was actually the result of Covid-19, and that it had been built in 2021 in order for families, single women, and children to live semi-permanently in their own private rooms (Smith). Since then they have partnered with numerous churches in the community to end homelessness, and to help families and women in need.

There are six core values that Family Promise is centered around. “Community, hospitality, innovation, empathy, dynamic, and empowerment are what we strive to bring to not only Gwinnett, but across the country as well” (Smith). From my short visit, I saw how each of these values were being executed; from bringing a sense of community and hospitality by working with volunteers and churches, to the empathy and empowerment that is given to each resident from the time they walk through the door, to the day that they leave to begin their own lives. An astounding seventy percent of families in the 2018 Hospitality program graduated with jobs, transportation, savings, and a dependable child care plan after an average of seventy-two days in the program (“Annual”).

As I left the building, I came away with a sense of hope for the many homeless families not only in our county, but throughout the whole country. Family Promise’s organizations spread into many states, helping homeless people everywhere. Though there are many organizations dedicated to this cause, what stood out about Family Promise to me were the statistics of the families who had graduated from the program. Overall, I think it is imperative that we as a community continue working towards eliminating homelessness, and one way that we can help the most is by volunteering. 

Works Cited

“Annual Report and Tax Status.” Family Promise of Gwinnett County, 23 Sept. 2019, https://familypromisegwinnett.org/tax-status-and-annual-report/. 

“Homeless Facts.” Family Promise of Gwinnett County, 15 Jan. 2022, https://familypromisegwinnett.org/homeless-facts-2/. 

“Mission and History.” Family Promise of Gwinnett County, 16 Feb. 2022, https://familypromisegwinnett.org/mission-and-history/. 

National Health Care for the Homeless Council Fact Sheet | May 2018. Feb. 2019, https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/suicide-fact-sheet.pdf. 

Smith, Jessica. Personal Interview, 16 Mar. 2023. 

"Homeless tents @ Dusk @ Sumida River" by *_* is licensed under CC BY 2.0.