I live in a suburb of Seattle, a big city with a big homelessness problem. When I say problem, I don't mean that the homeless people themselves are a nuisance and we need to get rid of them, but rather that we need to get rid of the homelessness so that everyone has a roof over their heads. I believe that a safe place to sleep is a right, not a privilege.
Side note: for the record, the term "homeless" isn't great. First of all, family and love makes a home, so technically they are "houseless" but even that doesn't fit, because a condo, apartment, or even co-dwelling may fit the bill for those who have no place safe to sleep. Plus, there are a lot of people out there who technically may have a safe place to sleep but are basically destitute as far as food, clothing, clean water, electricity, access to healthcare, etc. So it's better to use more culturally sensitive terms like "transitional", "poverty-striken", "in-transit", or something, but for ease of writing this post, I'm going to go with the term "homeless".
I've had lots of conversations with people about what they do when they see people asking for money on the street. What to do?
- One of my family members walked from their office building to Pike Place Market for lunch every day, and said if he gave even one quarter to every single person who asked him for money, he would literally give away his entire paycheck.
- One of my friends worried that the cash she gave would just be spent on alcohol and that she was only enabling them.
- One of my family members expressed frustration that this particular homeless individual is in the same spot all day every day for the last few years, and if they would have spent that time looking for a job or getting job training, they'd probably be more stable by now.
- One of my friends was baffled that the homeless individual had manicured fake nails and an iPhone.
- One of my family members remarked that there are a lot of programs available in our area to get people back on their feet, and if the homeless person they saw would take advantage of those programs they wouldn't have to beg for handouts.
I honestly don't know how I feel about these concerns, because honestly I agree with a lot of them. But I also know that homelessness and the cycle of homelessness is a huge issue and just handing someone a couple bucks isn't going to change their day/week/month/life enough to actually improve their situation.
I have to say here, my heart used to be much harder about this. My empathy has grown in this area because of a few things: the Holy Spirit helping me become more loving (a life-long goal, obvi), the book Same Kind of Different As Me
, the book Lost December
, and the movie The Pursuit Of Happyness
. All three of those made me realize how close we all are to hitting hard times, how human everyone is, and how tough it is to break the cycle once you're down.
For instance, let's say you drop off a resume. Where did you print that resume? What address is on the resume? What phone number can they contact you at to set up an interview? Okay, so you got an interview. What do you wear to it? Maybe you have a nice outfit but that's what you wore to drop off the resume...will they notice? So you ace the interview and get the job. What do you wear to your first day of work? If they didn't notice your only outfit before, they're sure to now! When do you get your first paycheck? MAYBE two weeks in, if you're lucky? What do you do until then? What are you bringing for lunch every day? You don't have time to head to the soup kitchen on your 30 minute break, and you get off work too late to line up for a bed/meal at the shelter. So for two weeks, are you eating nothing and sleeping in your car? Then once you do get paid, where does that small check go to? Do you use it for first and last month's rent, plus security deposit on an apartment? It's probably not enough money for that. Plus, the apartment will want references of your last place of residence, what will you provide them? Or are you spending your first paycheck on food? A few more pieces of work clothes to rotate through?
Anyways, it's just really really easy, easier than we think, to get into a transient situation, and very very difficult to get out of it.
One resource that I really love is a street newspaper we have in Seattle called Real Change. Basically, it's a monthly newspaper that is published and distributed by Seattle's homeless. They buy each paper for 60 cents, and resell it for $2. They keep 100% of the paper cost plus any tips they get. If they attend an orientation they receive their first five papers free to get them started. Plus, I regularly read the paper, and it's very well written.
Real Change helps break the cycle of homelessness because it's a way to make actual money by working hard, a way to gain job experience, and a way for the public to help end someone's homelessness while not giving a free handout or enabling drug and alcohol use. Real Change provides publishing jobs to vendors who are successfully working hard in the program. It is just a really great program, and my husband Chris and I are proud to be monthly donors and regular readers.
It's not just Seattle though! There are a bunch of cities around the country that have a similar "street paper" model. Here they all are!
Sarah Likes Today:
Lately doesn't it seem like you can't even keep up with the news?
AND
Doesn't it seem like sometimes you go to sleep at night and when you wake up a ton of stuff has happened?
AND
Isn't it really tough to keep watching the news and hearing horrible things and it just gets you down?
I'm an avid reader/subscriber to The Week, an online news source and weekly printed news magazine. I read the print version cover to cover and ALWAYS enter the joke contest every single week. I have won zero times so far but just saying.
The Week is a sister publication to Mental Floss, an online fun site with really really really interesting info about stuff and minimal clickbait. It actually used to be a magazine, my favorite magazine, and I subscribed to that too. Maybe there'll be another post on that because I'm sorry, Mental Floss is awesome, should not have been cancelled, and I literally pay more than twice the cover price to buy old issues on ebay.
Anyways. The Week has a free daily email you can subscribe to called "10 Things You Need to Know Today". It's basically what it sounds like. There are 10 headlines, 10 short 2-3 sentence descriptions of the story, and (most importantly) a link to the credible news source.
I have tried several daily news sources and haven't found anything as good as 10 Things You Need to Know Today. It's the first thing I read every morning and often the best thing I read all day (unless I end up reading an old issue of Mental Floss at some point in the day! 😊)
The best part about it: There's a similar email subscription they offer that's a weekly Good News Newsletter email. The only complaint I have is that that doesn't come out daily too!
Do yourself a favor and subscribe! Try it for just two weeks and I really think you'll love it.
Sarah Likes Today:
If you have kids, you may know that kids can fly for free on your lap until they are two years old. You also probably know that the closer they get to the two year mark, the more difficult it is to hold them quietly on your lap for the entire duration of the flight!
We're not really a "screen time" family, but we are realistic about how helpful quality educational programming can be when you are desperate: trying to get dinner on the table, trying to survive in a traffic jam, and most of all, trying to get through a flight with a toddler!
Our son Anthony has been on five round trip flights in his first two years, each one getting more and more difficult as he gets bigger and more active! Our most recent flight was to visit my husband in Wisconsin who was there for several weeks on a business trip: my very first flight alone with Anthony.
What got us through:
1) The grace of God.
2) The Target One Spot and its treasure trove of cheap toys that hold interest for even 2-3 minutes at a time.
3) Snacks, snacks, snacks.
4) Letting my almost-exclusively-sippy-cup
-kid have one of his coveted bottles.
5) Our Amazon Kindle Fire.
My husband Chris and I have a family iPad, which is what we used for flights 1-3. However, lately Anthony has insisted on touching the screen and holding it in his hands, and so the iPad became an adults-only toy! Right before our 4th flight, our longest yet (to Hawaii), I bought an Amazon Kindle Fire for him and it was the best money I ever spent! I bought a foamy case for it that protects it from drops, gives Anthony a place to hold it without touching the screen, and fits PERFECTLY in the magazine holder in the seat in front of us - at least on both Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
A tablet without a data plan? How is that possible? The Kindle Fire uses Wi-Fi, and we have Amazon Prime (another post soon soley devoted to how amazing Amazon Prime is) which allows you to download a certain number of TV shows and movies to watch offline for free. So before every flight, I made sure to download a few Daniel Tigers
, a few Sesame Streets
, and a movie for myself in case he fell asleep (WHICH HE DID ON THE FLIGHT HOME! PRAISE JESUS!).
There are also a bunch of free apps you can download that don't need Wi-Fi, like this coloring one, this alphabet one
, and this cars and trucks one
.
What about sound? I bought Anthony a pair of kid friendly headphones, and he does like them sometimes, but he's not a huge fan of things on his head (hats, sunglasses, headphones) much to our dismay. Thankfully, he is still super interested in the muted version so he was captivated even when he refused the 'phones. The thing I love about the headphones we bought is that I am able to use them too, when he fell asleep (see above, biggest miracle in my life so far). But, I have kind of a small head so that might not work for everyone!
For reading, honestly I don't love the Kindle Fire. You can download ebooks onto them and read them, but I don't like the glare you get when you read outside (aka poolside) nor the risk to the Kindle if it falls into the pool...for reading, I prefer the Kindle Paperwhite
which has ZERO glare, is super lightweight, and fits perfectly in a Ziploc gallon-sized bag for when I want to sit in the pool, sip an adult beverage, and read some chick lit
. But maybe a post about the Paperwhite someday; just know that you CAN read on the Kindle Fire if you want to.
If you are traveling with a kiddo, I can't recommend this enough. I've even seen used Kindles on Craigslist for next to nothing! You can restore factory settings and set them up with your own Amazon account, you don't have to buy just from Amazon...just a helpful hint! :-)
Sarah Likes Today:
