Mobile Loaves & Fishes Blog

UN World Habitat Day: How Can We Make Housing Noteworthy?

While sitting at a business conference recently somebody asked the question “what can I do to get my business noticed?”  The answer was simple: do something noteworthy.  Do something noteworthy…that makes sense!  Now, noteworthy…what exactly is noteworthy today?

The tabloids can’t seem to get enough of health care reform, Letterman, and the economy, but that’s not what I want to talk about right now.  I want to talk about home.  For the people who have homes, housing isn’t really a noteworthy topic.  Like Leigh mentioned earlier, home is often a quiet backdrop for the news of a life—the births the deaths, the joys and the sorrows. 

But, for a full third of our nation, home is a noteworthy topic.  For these 95 million people home isn’t a given.  It is a search, a hope, a goal.  Whether they have housing problems because of poverty, mental illness, or loss of family, they have them.  Many of these people are chronically homeless, and some are working 3 jobs and still unable to afford decent housing for their families. 

Here’s some food for thought via The World Habitat News page:

-One out of every three city dwellers n the world – nearly a billion people – lives in a slum. (Slum indicators include: lack of water, lack of sanitation, overcrowding, non-durable structures and insecure tenure.)

-The number of low-income families in the US that lack safe and affordable housing is related to the number of children that suffer from asthma, viral infections, anemia, stunted growth and other health problems. About 21,000 children have stunted growth attributable to the lack of stable housing; 10,000 children between the ages of 4 and 9 are hospitalized for asthma attacks each year because of cockroach infestation at home; and more than 180 children die each year in house fires attributable to faulty electrical heating and electrical equipment.

So I am asking you: do something to make housing a noteworthy and newsworthy topic today as part of The UN’s World Habitat Day.  Talk with co-workers, blog, tweet…heck, even THINK about it for a day.  Who knows what will come out of it!

-Rachel

Words To Live By

Now I say to you in conclusion,
life is hard,
at times as hard as crucible steel.

It has its bleak and difficult moments.
Like the ever-flowing waters of the river,
life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood.
Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons,
life has the soothing warmth of its summers
and the piercing chill of its winters.

But if one will hold on,
he will discover that God walks with him,
and that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair
to the buoyancy of hope
and transform dark and desolate valleys
into sunlit paths of inner peace.

-Martin Luther King Jr., 1963

Looking Back On The Immersion

Rachel here. 

Well, it is official, the Blog Action Day '08 immersion is over--I have showered, eaten a home-cooked meal, slept in bed, and used the bathroom without undue hesitation.  I am back!

The homecoming wasn't exactly what I had envisioned though.  I thought it would be easier to put the whole experience behind me and dive, face-first, back into the comforts of my life.  Sure, I would be extra thankful, but, I mean, 24 hours doesn't exactly have the power to undo almost 24 years of conditioning, right? 

Wrong.  Well, sort of.

I didn't do anything rash like haul my quilt and pillow curbside to sleep, or dumpster-dive for a meal, but I did have a problem taking all of the things I did without on the street for granted like I used to.  As I luxuriated in a (much needed) hot shower, instead of surrendering the tension in my shoulders to the scalding streams I tensed up, remembering how much I would have liked that same shower while I was cranky, cold, and huddled against the morning rain. 

Instead of stumbling, half-awake, in and out of the bathroom for a middle-of-the night (you guessed it!) pee, I was wide awake and uncomfortable with thoughts of how hard it was to find a secure place on the street to do the same.

Each time I do something that I couldn't do while out on the street I get a pang.  Of guilt?  Not exactly.  Of remorse?  Certainly not for myself, though definitely for the other people still in that situation.  I guess, if I have to put a name to it, I get a pang of remembrance.  And it brings my mind and my focus back to what I have, how lucky I am to have it, and what life could be without it. 

And frankly?  It won't let me sleep. 

You would think this kind of gratitude would be a warm, fuzzy feeling, but it isn't.  It is the tension that cramps my shoulders up near my ears, it is the scratchy whisper in the back of my head, and it is the resentment I could see in the eyes of those I spoke to sometimes.  I tossed and turned all night  last night, I couldn't get comfortable.  But the problem wasn't the bed, it was my mind. 

How can I live in a world that lets people live this way? 

The way people on the streets live is not acceptable.  No access to nutritious food.  Constant lack of sleep.  No public bathrooms and, what is worse, no viable alternative to the lifestyle.  Our elderly, our mentally ill, our traumatized and addicted.  Our downtrodden.   In this light the positive attitude, the optimism, and the community I encountered on the street is even more impressive. 

I am still processing everything that I have seen.  I am processing my gratitude, my confusion, my anger, my sadness, and my discomfort.    I would say that my life was more simple when I was only intellectually aware of poverty's face, but I would also say that that simplicity was born of an absence of understanding. 

So, bring it on.  Bring on the understanding, bring on the change, bring on the awareness.

Bring.  It. On. 

living in the now: the double-edged sword of street consciousness

Hello, Rachel here again. 

Much relieved now, but I am going to write about the agonizing almost 50 minutes I spent sitting outside the public library waiting for it to open so I could use the bathroom.   

I was almost positive I would pee my pants before the 50 minutes were up, so I took a trip around the library looking for some private foliage, a nook, a somewhat secluded patch of greenery...anything, really.

There was nothing, unless I broke the law blatantly and used the ladies on the manicured lawn of one of those historical mansions-turned-office buildings.  Which, although I was in considerable need, didn't seem like an option.

So I did my funny walk back to the table and chairs where the immersionists were parked and looked at the clock.  I had 41 minutes. 

I tweeted, I blogged, I looked imploringly from face to face to face to dog and back to face again.  A minute had ticked by.  I took my picture to immortalize the occasion:

To spare you the agonizing suspense I will tell you: I MADE IT. 

Right at 10:00 they opened the doors and less than a minute later I was able to bound out, a new woman.

It wasn't until then, until my bladder was empty and no longer a legitimate emergency, that I was able to realize something profound.  I had been, for the past 41 minutes, living in the moment wholly and completely.

This may not be remarkable in and of itself, but in the context of my (admittedly) neurotic, over-hyped, and anxious mind it is near miraculous. 

I wake up thinking ahead, go to sleep thinking ahead, and sometimes can't even focus enough on the present task to read emails all the way through on my Blackberry.  (First world problem, hello!)  I try to do yoga, garden, and take long walks with the dog to mitigate this tendency--research shows that people this anxious are some of the first to die, after all.

Hah, would you believe it?  I lost track...

So living in the present moment, concentrating on my here and now?  For almost an hour?

MONUMENTAL. 

Thank you streets of Austin.

Don't Manage the Social Wrong, Solve It: The Story of Million-Dollar Murray

I try to read articles, editorials, and books about the subjects that interest me--I think knowledge is important and empowering.  But I often find that the articles and books aren't nearly as interesting as my interests themselves.

However, I just finished an article that was so thought provoking and so interesting that I feel compelled to share it with you all.  It is called "Million -Dollar Murray: Why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage." by Malcom Gladwell.  It appeared in The New Yorker in 2006, and has some amazing things to say about the way America solves (or doesn't solve) the "power-law" problem of chronic homelessness. 

What makes the problem of chronic homelessness a "power-law problem" is its distribution.  In the article, Gladwell cites research that says the 10% of the homeless out there that are chronically homeless are using up more resources than the other 90% of the homeless.  These chronically homeless, those at the "farthest edge of the curve," are basically the "few hard cases, and that's good news, because when a problem is that concentrated you can wrap your arms around it and think about soling it.  The bad news is that those few hard cases are hard." 

This problem of the  smallest group of people draining the largest amount of resources cannot be approached by catering to the general homeless person with shelters, soup kitchens, and short-term management programs.  Instead, the article follows a small group who proposed a radical solution: Don't manage the social wrong, solve it.

Just like any solution of this magnitude, there are pros and cons,  and sacrifices and concessions involved, but the research is compelling--at least economically.  What would it mean to give the chronically homeless a chance?  How would it impact their lives?  How would it impact ours?

Read the article for an answer, even if it isn't the answer, to these and other compelling questions.

Enjoy.

-Rachel

TCU Covers Habitat On Wheels in Student Newspaper

TCU, Texas Christian University, a school dedicated to "learning to change the world," wrote a great editorial about HOW's Park Place Village in The Daily Skiff, their student newspaper.

Look at the article here to see what the young people at TCU are saying about our revolutionary project. 

And stay tuned for even more about Habitat On Wheels and Park Place Village!

-Rachel