My Eyes Feel They Need to Cry: Stories from the Formerly Homeless

Chapter Three. A Change in Direction [Includes Image Plates]

73 chapter three A Change in Direction Education empowers you. You never lose the knowledge once you have the knowledge. No one can take that away from you. It’s yours for life. You had all theseotherthingstakenfromyou,buttheycannottakeeducationawayfromyou. —Toni Townshend, Advent House Ministries HOMELESS NO MORE! Noteveryonewhohaslivedonthestreetsremainsthere.Somefindawaytoleavethis way of life—perhaps it is even a response to their lifelong feelings of abandonment. Theyarenowinchargeofredirectingtheirlives.Howandwhydosomefindthecourage ,strength,motivation,andinspirationtochangeandmovetheirlivesforward?How dotheydiscoverhowtoaccess,examine,andconfronttheirprofoundcoreissues?How do they develop the capacity to begin to realize they must abandon destructive habits andgetaneducationsotheycanfindajobtobecomeself-sufficient?Thesequestions willnotleavemealone.Sadly,becauseoftheseverityoftheirmentalillness,someare not even able to begin to conceptualize a way to get off the streets. Leaving a life of homelessness and finding a home is a profound endeavor. Cultivating one’s personal inner resources and developing new concrete skills involves finding meaning or purpose, becoming literate, developing trust, having a mentor, Chapter Three 74 accessing human social services, and finding work—and not necessarily in any set order. Each individual’s journey is different. The challenge requires repeated efforts, often with small successes and many failures—one step at a time. People need tremendous hope and faith to travel such a profoundly difficult road. They may be the only family member who takes this route. Elliot Liebow (1993) talks about women who take the step to leave the streets and access shelters: Most homeless women . . . look to shelters to provide that minimum security, nourishment and sociability that begin to make life possible. It is there that the women put together the physical basis for life in a city: food, protection from (human) predators and weather, safe sleep, clean water for washing oneself and ones’ clothes, toilets, and a few creature comforts as well. Shelters also serve as a home base for women who have no homes, and provide a pool of persons from which they may choose acquaintances, associates, comrades, and friends. (4) Liebow continues: For homeless women on the street, the struggle for subsistence begins at the animal level—for food, water, shelter, security, and safe sleep. In contrast, homeless women in shelters usually have these things; their struggle begins at the level of human rather than animal needs—protection of one’s property, health care, and avoidance of boredom. The struggle then moves rapidly to the search for companionship, modest measures of independence, dignity, and self-respect, and some hope and faith for the future. These needs are not particularly sequential or hierarchical. One can just as easily be immobilized by hopelessness and despair as by hunger and cold. Body and soul are equally in need of nurture and the women must grab whatever they can get when they can get it. (26–27) BREAKING THE CYCLE Change is a gradual process involving major and minor transitions; it takes time and patience. Having problems is difficult. Confronting and acknowledging them is even moredifficult.ChrisDancisak,formerdirectorofcommunityrelationsattheMichigan A Change in Direction 75 Historical Museum, has said that making necessary change is the greatest challenge we have as human beings—particularly when it relates to survival issues. The older we get, the harder it is to change. However, when change occurs, it can be very sweet. Mental-health professionals often talk about how individuals repeat family patterns unless they discover a way to interrupt the cycle—usually with the help of others. In a famous article, “Ghosts in the Nursery,” Selma Fraiberg (a professor of child psychoanalysis) and her colleagues Edna Adelson and Vivian Shapiro wrote: In every nursery there are ghosts. They are the visitors from the unremembered past of the parents, the uninvited guests at the christening. Under all favorable circumstances,theunfriendlyandunbiddenspiritsarebanishedfromthenursery and return to their subterranean dwelling place. The baby makes his own imperative claim upon parental love and, in strict analogy with the fairy tales, the bonds of love protect the child and his parents against the intruders, the malevolent ghosts.(Fraiberg et al. 1975, 387) The people who participated in “Your Story and Mine: A Community of Hope” grappled with numerous difficult dilemmas as they tried to rid themselves of the ghosts that haunt them. Perhaps they grew tired of their pain. They worked to break up the destructive patterns that they learned from their parents and grandparents, who had inherited them from their ancestors. They left what was familiar and comfortable —although counterproductive—to become more functioning, self-sufficient humanbeings.Usually...