Imagine the flu… without the comforts of home

This has been a brutal flu season. My family was hit hard last week, with three out of four of us succumbing to the fevers, chills, nausea, aches, pains, congestion, and general horribleness that had us curled up under blankets on couches and sleeping long hours in our beds. It was nothing short of miserable.

In the midst of my own illness and while taking care of my children, a thought occurred to me. How much worse would this situation be without some of these basic comforts of home? Imagine being sick and having no bed or couch to sleep on – perhaps not even a comfortable chair to rest in. What about no warm blankets to warm away the chills? I started to think about the soothing warm tea we were drinking out of mugs we take for granted, and also my cooking utensils, knives, and  the stockpot I can use to make homemade soup. So many of these things are items I provide to families every day at Home Sweet Home, but there are too many people who still don’t have these basic necessities.

Right now, we have over 60 referrals (representing both individuals and families) on our wait list to receive furnishings from Home Sweet Home. We are serving them as quickly as we can at our current capacity, but more referrals are coming in every day. The current referrals come from our 15 partner agencies, and we have 30 more agencies that would like to work with us on a wait list. Families are waiting much too long for the things they desperately need. Can you help us do more? What will it take to have more capacity?

To serve our community better, we need:

• A larger warehouse space to store, process, and organize donations while serving more clients.
• A second truck to help us make community donation pick-ups more timely and also to deliver furniture to more clients.
• Additional funding to help us accomplish these goals.

I don’t want a mother of three who has taken her family out of a domestic violence situation to then wait two months to get basic furnishings. I don’t want a formerly unhoused veteran to spend time in his new apartment lying on the floor with the flu. Let’s try to fix this. If you are able to donate toward our 2018 Initiative, please click here. We’re so grateful for your belief in our efforts, and we thank you for your support.

Lisa Long
Client Services Coordinator

Lisa Long started as our Client Services Coordinator in October of last year. While she has spent the majority of her career working in public relations, marketing, and product development, she has always been drawn to service opportunities and community outreach within her roles. She has been involved with Home Sweet Home since the beginning.

MEET WILLIAM

His name is William. He’s one of the most articulate people you will ever meet. He has a peaceful yet sturdy stance. One boot planted in the present, the next boot positioned towards: What’s next?

I met William on a cold November day to talk about his story, his experience at Home Sweet Home and his future hope for the unhoused community of St. Louis.

William has been a St. Louis resident for a good portion of his life. I’am proud to tell his story.

William drove a concrete truck for most of his life. After a serious accident while driving, he maintained life long injuries that led to his inability to drive. With sudden shifts in his personal life, followed by job loss and several surgeries, in 2006, William for the first time in his life found himself without a place to call home.

Fast forward to the present day, William has seen and overcome a lot. What he has seen is a world filled with “mostly good people”, he says.   William spoke of the many hurdles one must jump through in order to find sustainable housing and of his hopes for his community. He hopes the world of temporary shelters can one day not be such a “rule driven authoritative world” but a place of slow rehabilitation. A place where people can slowly transition back to a life not lived on the streets. He hopes the city of St. Louis can find a way to provide more shelters in the face of so many abandoned warehouses. He hopes.

He said, “Home Sweet Home was a place where I was treated with respect. You can just tell the people working there get it.” He was grateful for the rugs that help with his knee, the coffee pot and of course all the furniture that makes it feel like home. He only wishes everyone had access to such a place.

I met William a week or so later to say, “Hi” and wish him a Merry Christmas. He reminds me of the people back in Nebraska. Salt of the earth people. He wanted to show me his new apartment. He says his neighbors watch out for each other, that his heat is finally working and his son just came to visit him. As I leave he asks, “Can you find your way out of the neighborhood?” I say, “Of course.”

Because St. Louis is my home now, and it’s even sweeter knowing he has one too.

Written by Erin Outson. Erin moved to St. Louis from Chicago to attend Eden Theological Seminary. She is a first year Mdiv Student hoping to combine her love of theater, social justice and ministry. Erin will be working at Home Sweet Home as her placement site for the 2017-2018 year.