Tips – Page 4

What about the Pets?

What about the pets, you ask? What do the homeless do with them when they become homeless? We can’t answer for everyone, but we can tell you what we’ve observed in our years in the motels.

Shelters are overflowing with pets whose owners can no longer afford to take care of them. Some have been responsibly surrendered. Many have been abandoned, their secure little worlds ripped apart by owners too self-centered to do the right thing by their loyal companions.

Interestingly enough, we’ve observed that the motels abound with pets. Why would anyone want to hold onto a pet they can’t feed or take care of, you ask? Because their owners can’t imagine abandoning them or giving them up to a shelter for certain death. Just as they would never give up their children, most motel residents do not abandon their pets. They do the best they can to take care of them.

Succession Plan–Do you have one?

Does your organization have a succession plan? If it’s only in your head, you don’t. A good succession plan must be in writing. What is a succession plan, you ask? It’s the guarantee that your vision, your passion, your life’s work will continue in the event of your untimely catastrophic injury or even worse, death.

You come a long way from the day when you decide to hand a homeless person a sandwich, to the day you serve thousands of people every year. Building that kind of ministry takes planning and the successful persistence of it is in the details. If the details die with you, the ministry dies with you.

Taking Time Off

Taking time off. It doesn’t seem like something you should do if you’re truly committed to helping the homeless, right? Wrong!!! The absolutely worst thing you can do for yourself and your clients is to not allow yourself time off. You are not a machine. You are a normal, flesh and blood human being and just like that machine, you can break down if you don’t take care of yourself.

The cost to yourself isn’t just physical, although that can be pretty tiring in itself. In the course of loving and serving your homeless friends you will see, hear and experience heartbreaking, unspeakably hard things. Over time this has a cumulative effect. If you don’t carve out some separate time for yourself to get away both physically and most importantly, mentally, you will implode. No one was ever meant to keep just “going and going”. You are not the Energizer Bunny. Your batteries will definitely wear out.

Children’s Programs–For Children Only?

We have a program every Sunday at a local motel we call the “Children’s” program. It certain We can all have fun together ly started out as a children’s program. We did crafts and played games with the children and had a great time.

After a while, some of the parents starting coming out to help us. They quickly became some of our best, most helpful volunteers. Then some residents who had no children at all started coming out and helping too. Now it seems we have as many adults attending as children. They dive right into the activities. They love doing the crafts and want to play the games. If we bring Play-Doh, they happily take their share and start creating. If we bring Hidden Pictures, they jump right in and have a hilarious time. Or, they just like to sit and talk to us.

I finally realized the adults wanted to be part of what we do. We’re fun to be around and, they desperately need something to distract them from the realities of their hard lives for 5 minutes. They love their children with a passion and they bear the burden of knowing it’s their responsibility to see their children have everything they need, when they know they can’t possibly provide it all. They feel guilty, stressed and discouraged.

Opportunity Ignored–Blessing Missed?

Sometimes an opportunity ignored can turn into a blessing missed. There will be days you are so tired that you don’t think you have another ounce of “Help Me” left in you. Last Saturday was one of those. I had worked all day, from 8 am to 6:30 pm. I was tired, cooked, stick a fork in me, I’m done. However, I checked the Project Dignity voicemail line one last time, “just to make sure”.

Murphy’s Law was in full force. No messages all day. I’m hungry. My cats are hungry. I’m ready for some rest. A message comes in at 6:05 pm. Who calls a place of business after 6pm on a Saturday night, expecting a call back? Really? My first mistake was listening to the message. You can’t unring that bell. A woman caller left a message. Basically it was just her name and phone number. She didn’t indicate what she needed, but she ended the message with the phrase, “I just need someone to call me back”. Her voice was soft and her words trailed off at the end. She sounded more tired than I did. It hit me like a ton of bricks that here was someone nearly at the end of their rope. She needed a call back now.

What Makes a Great Volunteer?

Volunteers come in all shapes, sizes and attitudes. They range all the way from the ones who are offering you their services because they’re sure they can improve on what you’re doing, to the golden one who states on their volunteer application “Put me in wherever you need me. I just want to help”. This is your Great Volunteer!

Serving Our Homeless Friends with Love

Human nature being what it is, you will get many more of the former than the latter. My advice is to listen to them. Sometimes, they actually are right and have great ideas. Don’t be so arrogant and defensive that you miss the opportunity to improve. After all, you’re out there to help your homeless clients in the way that’s best for them. That means considering anything that might be helpful and feasible.

On the other hand, after careful consideration if what is being suggested is something you know won’t work, because its: too difficult to implement, beyond your budget, dangerous, outside of the scope of your vision/mission, etc., feel free to say so. You are the boss. You get to make the hard/unpopular decisions. It’s up to you to steer the organization in the direction you and your board of directors have decided on.

We really all are in the lifeboat of planet Earth together

Look me in the eye

One of the best things you can ever do for the homeless is to look them right in the eye when speaking to them. So many people are afraid to do this. They’re afraid if they make a connection, something will be required of them. It’s true the homeless do have some very huge problems, but they do not all expect you to solve every one of them. Like any of us, the homeless are just looking for someone to validate their existence, make them real for five minutes. It costs you nothing to do this, but the value you give to the individual is huge. When you look someone in the eye you are telling them:

1) You’re another human being just like me
2) I’m not scared of you
3) I’m interested in you
4) I really do care about you
5) We really all are in the lifeboat of planet Earth together

This is an excerpt from the free “Serving the Homeless in Motels” eBook, which you can find out more about here, or download right now:

Download the free “Serving the Homeless in Motels” eBook