One evening I was flying home after a long business trip. I sat just behind a young woman with three small children who were a bit fussy as they boarded the plane, but were soon asleep once we were airborne. Upon arrival a passenger sitting up front (I'll call her "L") offered to help the young mother (I'll call her "J") get J's children & carry-on luggage off the airplane. L grabbed their bags, J gathered her oldest child and the infant, which left the toddler (still asleep) across the aisle from me. I had a free hand, so I offered to carry J's toddler...an offer that she gratefully accepted. As the six of us trundled down towards baggage claim, L & I began the sort of small talk people make while traveling..."where are you from?", "where are you headed?", "how old are your kids?", etc. J was very quiet and subdued as we arrived at the luggage carousel...she was obviously stressed and exhausted, as were her kids after their all-day trip across the country. I gathered their one checked duffel bag for them and as we inquired further about helping, we discovered that J had no car, no money, no phone and apparently no ride since the sister that was supposed to pick her up had not arrived and was not answering her phone.
Both L and I moved off to the side for a quiet conference and came to the realization that we had stumbled into the following scenario...a mother with three children was homeless and abandoned at the airport. This was a watershed moment and defining "Y-in-the-road" sort of decision that comes along every so often in one's life...one option would be to simply walk away, try to ignore the problem and assuage the guilt later on with reasoned explanations and perhaps a well-placed donation; I have to admit I probably would've done just that 90% of the time. That night however, for whatever reason, L and I decided to remain involved. As L began making calls, I got on my laptop and began researching shelter possibilities: Salvation Army, Red Cross, local homeless advocates, city and county agencies...of course, being that it was midnight on a Friday night, it was not surprising that I failed to reach anyone that could help.
L finally decided to pack J and her kids up and take them to a hotel until we could find a more permanent solution. Thus began a months long journey where we became part of a team that spent a lot of time and treasure to help J and her kids get back on their feet. It was a long, exhausting, frustrating, enlightening experience...J's perseverance and strength were inspiring throughout. J's story could be re-told many times over in this country: She and her boyfriend (the children's father) both lost their job in the economic downturn, got evicted from their apartment, bounced around with various friends and family members until they eventually became homeless...neither alcohol nor drugs seemed to be involved. J's boyfriend eventually found a job in Florida and promised to send for her and their kids once established. After the call came, J & her children boarded a bus and they traveled across the country but upon arrival, found that while J's boyfriend did have a job, he had no place for them to stay, so they ended up in a homeless shelter. After a few weeks in this environment, J took the offer of a local non-profit to purchase airline tickets back to SMF with the understanding that J's sister would be taking them in upon arrival. Later on, it became apparent why J's sister was not able to do this.
The next day, I began researching all the possibilities for housing a homeless woman with three kids: Section 8, transitional housing, subsidized housing, shelters, etc...the results were grim indeed. Everything was full, and if you could even get on the waiting list, it would be months or even years before something became available. After a few days of running into one dead-end after another, and thanks to a contact on the Board of Directors of a substance abuse shelter for women (J was not an abuser of drugs or alcohol) we were able to find her and her kids a place to stay and move her out of the hotel, which she reluctantly agreed to (if you've had your children in a homeless shelter environment previously, you would not want to go back either). We continued to visit weekly, coordinate our assistance with her case worker and J dutifully complied with the program requirements at the shelter, availed herself of the government assistance she qualified for and began looking for more permanent housing opportunities. After many months of struggle and frustration, we came to the conclusion that NONE of the programs intended to help someone in J's situation would actually assist her in obtaining housing. We eventually were able to move her out of the shelter and into a market-rate apartment; the only way this happened is that we found a sympathetic leasing agent and I agreed to post a bond that represented 50% of the apartment rent for six months. We subsequently solicited donations from our respective social circles to help get J back on her feet. We collected a substantial amount, but J never used any of the money and we ended up donating it to the shelter where she and her children stayed. She was never late on her rent and the bond I posted was not needed.
Here is what I learned from this experience:
1) There are many government and private sector programs that purport to help people make the transition from homelessness to permanent housing, but they either are A) full to capacity and you can't even get on the waiting list, or B) housing programs in name only and when it's time for the rubber to meet the road, the money is not there to help.
2) Even with a team of motivated, educated, compassionate, well-funded individuals assisting J, it was extremely difficult and frustrating to try and navigate the maze of requirements to qualify for some of these programs; trying to do it yourself while looking after three young children seems an impossible task to me.
3) It is a much better use of time, money and energy to prevent someone from becoming homeless in the first place rather than trying to move them from homelessness back into a permanent housing situation.
While all this was going on, I was six years into a dream
project of building my own airplane. I was to the point where I was
going to need to spend about $25,000 for an engine to get it into the air. After this experience with J, my priorities changed. I decided to sell the airplane and take the proceeds, along with the $25,000 I had saved for the engine and instead sponsored a Habitat for Humanity home. This home did not benefit J (she didn't qualify financially), but it became a safe, stable, affordable, energy-efficient home to a family that was equally deserving and just as willing to put in the time and effort to help themselves and make a better life for their kids. I kept expecting to regret my decision to abandon my dream of building an airplane, but that has not yet happened. Upon further reflection, it just seemed to make sense to take whatever income my investments produced (interest, dividends, capital gains) and use it to keep someone from falling into the situation that J was confronted with that night in the airport. I'd like to claim that it is inspired by an abundance of compassion on my part, but really, it just seems to be a common sense thing to do. This was the catalyst that begat the idea that eventually evolved into the SierraZulu Fund.
Thanks for reading.
