Now that Mother’s Day is over, the word on the street is that everything goes back to business as usual. We certainly hope not, but as someone close to our campaign told me, “after Mother’s Day NO ONE in the media is going to be interested in your diaper drive.”
According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, not since the Great Depression have so many families been without a home. We may not see them in the tent cities that are scattered around the country and reported on in USA Today. If they are not newsworthy enough for the evening news, it does not mean that they don’t exist.
Many homeless families cannot be accounted for. They are hidden in the nation’s motel rooms,doubled up in single room occupancy hotels, living out of their cars, or couch surfing with friends and family while they wait for an opening in a homeless shelter. What is particularly arresting is that in some areas of California, after families have“graduated” from a homeless shelter’s program (e.g.,St. John’s Shelter for Women and Children), they have NOWHERE else to turn.
Please watch this video of David, Tish, and Natasha, interviewed by Mark Horvath ofInvisiblePeople.tv, at the Prado Day Center in San Luis Obispo. They do their best to raise their 15 month old daughter in the shelter system, while also helping out other homeless folks. Inspiring.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/4569947]
There are more than a million of these little stories across America that remain untold and hidden from our view. There are families just like this one who are in your own community.
If you are laid off or underemployed shut down the pity party before it gets out of control. Do something. It doesn’t take much to contribute your own gifts in your own community.