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Wednesday, August 31, 2005
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Mother talks about finding housing Little Falls-based faith group to help homeless Staff Writer LITTLE FALLS -- Several months ago, a 30-year-old Little Falls mother prepared a package of Hamburger Helper for her three children the best she could.
Church sites listed
The following churches are part of a program through Morrison County's Interfaith Hospitality Network that have agreed to house homeless families overnight:
St. Michael's Church, Buckman.
Sacred Heart Parish, Flensburg.
Holy Cross, Harding.
Community Country Church, Holdingford.
St. John's Catholic Church, Lastrup.
Assembly of God, First Lutheran Church, Grave Covenant Church, Holy Family Parish, Our Lady of the Lourdes at First United Church, St. Mary's Church, Trinity Chapel, all of Little Falls.
Faith Community Church, Fellowship Bible and St. Joseph Church, all of Pierz.
St. James Church, Randall.
St. Stanislaus Church, Sobieski.
Gethsemane Lutheran Community Church and Word of Life Free Lutheran Church, both of Upsala.
For more information on which site will be the host site for the week, call the Morrison County Interfaith Hospitality Network at (320) 632-6528.
Central Minnesota facts on homeless
An estimated 141 children are either homeless or living in temporary arrangements on any given night.
Seventy-nine percent of homeless women have children under age 18, and 72 percent of the women have at least one child with them. Thirty-nine percent of homeless men have children under age 18, and 17 percent have at least one child with them.
Nearly half of the youths experiencing homelessness have been physically or sexually mistreated.
The percentage of homeless youths who are enrolled in school is 60 percent.
In 2003, 71 percent of homeless adults were unemployed.
Of the homeless adults, 43 percent reported they stayed in an abusive relationship because they had nowhere else to live.
Of homeless adults, 38 percent reported a significant mental health problem in the past 12 months.
Of the homeless adults, 20 percent have less than a high school education, 48 percent completed high school or a GED and 32 percent have post-secondary education.
Central Minnesota includes the counties of Benton, Cass, Chisago, Crow Wing, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd, Wadena and Wright.
Source: Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless.
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The mother did not have a kitchen or a stove. She only had a small space for cooking in Room 19 at the Clifwood Motel in Little Falls. The mother and her three children, ages 4, 6 and 11, lived in the motel for nearly nine months when they were without a home.
The family shared their story in March. A few months ago they moved to a downstairs apartment east of the Mississippi River in Little Falls.
Through the transition of finding a place to live the family received assistance from Morrison County's Interfaith Hospitality Network, a national program that helps people who are homeless.
Greg Spofford, director of the Morrison County network, said a program to help the homeless will begin operation Sept. 12 and will help serve the homeless in Morrison, Crow Wing, Cass, Wadena and Todd counties.
About 19 faith communities in the Little Falls area have agreed to house homeless families overnight and Grace Covenant Church in Little Falls will be the first host site. The churches will accommodate families for one week, then the families will rotate to the next host church. A single family can stay in the program for up to two months. However, Spofford said families will not be forced to leave.
Spofford said the network prides itself on keeping families together by giving them private sleeping areas. Each site will provide sleeping areas for six families or 18 people. Each site also will have kitchen facilities available and will provide breakfast, a packed lunch, dinner and an evening snack.
Two to four volunteers will stay at each site overnight to make sure families' needs are met.
According to the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless in a 2003 survey done by the Wilder Research Center, about 20,347 people were homeless in Minnesota. Each night, 7,000 individuals receive shelter from a variety of homeless service providers across the state and about 1,000 of them are turned away from shelters because of inadequate resources.
In central Minnesota, which includes the five-county area in the Morrison County network, on any given night shelters serve more than 400 homeless people, half of whom are children, according to the 2003 study.
The family that stayed at the Clifwood Motel did not fit the homeless stereotype of dirty people on the streets begging for food and living under a bridge. The mother was a member of the Minnesota Parent Teacher Association, Minnesota Head Start Association and the Policy Council in the Head Start program through Tri-County Community Action. She also was a Cub Scout leader. She volunteered in the Little Falls School District with the multi-age grouping program.
The mother owns two vehicles. She uses one to take the children to school and her husband drives the second vehicle. Her husband is a construction worker who usually works out of town. When he works full time, he earns $1,284 a month.
The woman paid $210 a week at the motel and spent about $100-$150 a week on groceries. She also paid about $300 a month for medical bills and prescriptions.
She said, in trying to buy or rent a home, the family had trouble coming up with the down payment and the first month's rent or mortgage.
"We can't save anything," she said. "We lived with my mom for a couple of years and with a friend for almost a year and then we got a house. We later lost the house.
"I later got my GED, bought a car and I worked at the courthouse, but I lost the job because of budget cuts. We looked at buying another house, but we came $300 short and we lost it."
The woman said the cost of day care for three children also hindered her job search.
While the family was homeless, the mother said the worst part was not having a permanent home for the children. She said it was hard on the children to live at the motel and not have their own space.
"People get depressed, not lazy, when they are homeless," she said. "I started to see it with my family and that scared me."
Today the family is reportedly doing well. Spofford said the family members have come a long way and are getting back on their feet.
JENNIFER STOCKINGER can be reached at jennifer.stockinger@brainerddispatch. com or 855-5851.
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