Reaching out to the homeless: Our House offers free day care and other help

Food and Nutrition, Fall-Winter, 1989 by Connie Crunkleton

Reaching Out To The Homeless

Atlanta, Georgia, has stood as a beacon of opportunity over the past few decades to families throughout the Southeast. Unfortunately, as the city's service-based economy has boomed, so has the cost of living.

The result has been a growing number of unskilled people who barely earn enough to maintain a minimal standard of living. When these people are faced with a crisis--such as job loss, illness, divorce, or spouse abuse -- many of them end up homeless.

Churches, civic groups, and local governments have responded to the needs of the homeless by providing temporary shelters throughout the metro-Atlanta area. But most of these shelters don't operate during the day. Residents must leave early in the morning and spend the day on their own until facilities reopen in the evening. Being homeless is devastating enough, but being homeless with small children presents special problems.

How, for example, do parents go for job interviews or show up at work if they have no place to put their children? What do they do with a sick child once they leave the temporary shelter?

Special help

during the day

One of the first gropus to recognize the special needs of homeless families with children was the North Decatur Presbyterian Church, located in DeKalb County , one of the five counties comprising the metro-Atlanta area. The church was instrumental in forming the KeKalb County Children's Shelter Development Committee in the spring of 1987. This 32-member group represented all sectors of the community, including churches, local governments, the courts, and health, training, and shelter service agencies.

Most committee members had been involved with the homeless in some way--by serving on boards, establishing night shelters, o r working as volunteers--so they had first-hand experience with the problems of the homeless. Tjhey knew that without free day care, helping the parents of these children move out of shelters and into permanent homes would be impossible.

The result of this concern is "Our House, Inc.," a free day care center for preschool children from homeless families. Our House provides shelter for up to 30 children at a time and is open 5 days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. This enables the parents to seek and accept training or employment, look for permanent housing, and obtain other services for the family.

Anne Branscome, one of the original committee members, in director Our House. "Something had to be done," she says. "We found it increasingly difficult to turn small children out on the street--especially when they were sick or the weather was bad."

Our House opened March 28, 1988. "In the first year, we provided day care for 316 children, served more than 9,000 meals, and arranged for more than 500 medical examinations," Branscome says. "This enabled more than 100 parents to go to work and nearly 60 families to obtain their own housing."

Contrary to the stereotype of homeless children, Branscome says 40 to 45 percent of the children at Our House are from two-parent families--and most of their parents have full-time or part-time jobs. "Most of these people hold minimum wage jobs, although we have had some parents with college degrees who ran into a bit of bad luck," she says.

"Two-parent families have a better chance of getting out of their homeless situation," she notes. "It's next to impossible for a single mother or father with more than one preschool child to solve their homeless problem when they earn only minimum wage. Unless we can get them into public housing, they have very little chance of climbing out of their economic quagmire."

Free day care

and food aid

Our House provides 90 days of free day care for children after a family moves into its own housing. This allows the family to catch up after having to pay expenses such as advance rent, utility deposits, and phone installation.

"If we kicked the children out just as soon as their parents obtained housing, it wouldn't be very long until they were back out on the street," says Branscome. "These people need a grace period before they can withstand the onslaught of even minor financial setbacks."

In addition to routine day care, Our House takes into consideration that homeless children may be more likely to get sick. The day care center has three "sick rooms." One of the rooms is used for twice-weekly visits by a public health nurse and a nurse practitioner. The other two rooms are available for homeless parents to stay with a sick child.

Food help is another contribution Our House makes towards the well-being of homeless families. Children receive breakfast, lunch, and a snack each day. "All the medical care in the world won't make children healthy if they don't get enough to eat," Branscome says.

"One of the first things we do for the parents of these children is explain that they would probably qualify for USDA food stamps and WIC. WIC, in particular, is a Godsend for these children."

Branscome says she has seen several instances where children began making significant improvements in their health and mental alertness after receiving regular, balanced meals.