H.O.M.E. Word – A blog from Project H.O.M.E.

Please help Philadelphia do the smart and right thing for people who are living on our streets. 

The 100,000 Homes Campaign is a national grassroots effort to place America’s most vulnerable, long-term homeless individuals into 100,000 homes by July 2013. Mayor Nutter, Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Office of Supportive Housing, along with Project H.O.M.E., the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Horizon House, Bethesda Project, Broad Street Ministry, and Pathways to Housing are all partners in Philadelphia’s local campaign.

As Philadelphia joins this dynamic effort, we need your help! The success of the 100,000 Homes Campaign depends on the partnership of volunteers, especially during Outreach Week (May 15-20).  That week, teams of volunteers will take to the streets to survey persons who are homeless. The goal is to create a by-name registry of people living on our streets, to prioritize people who have been out there the longest and have the most severe needs. What we learn together during this week will help us reduce chronic homelessness in Philadelphia.

Outreach Week is right around the corner. We’ve got social workers, case managers, students, CEOs, certified peer specialists, academics, and many others on our team who share the belief that we can end homelessness in Philadelphia!

We’re well on our way to our volunteer goal, but we need your help. For Philadelphia Outreach Week to reach as many individuals experiencing homelessness as possible, we need more volunteers.

To volunteer, click here.  And please spread the word to others who may want to join our team.

If each person reading this recruits one change agent/concerned citizen, we’ll be in great shape.

Please contact Jake Bowling at jbowling@mhasp.org or at 267-507-3816 if you have any questions about Philadelphia’s campaign. Let us know of any volunteer groups, agencies, faith communities, or other groups that would benefit from a presentation about 100K Homes.

For more information on the campaign, go to www.100khomesphilly.org. Also, find us on Facebook (100K Homes Philly).

For more information about the national campaign, visit www.100khomes.org.

Sister Mary Scullion

In June 2010, our co-founder and Executive Director Sister Mary Scullion was invited to submit to the “This I Believe” audio essay project, in which persons describe the core values that guide their daily lives.  Sister Mary’s essay was broadcast on Philadelphia’s public radio station WHYY-FM.  Here is a transcription of that audio essay.

When I was a student at St. Joseph’s University, I began to spend time on the streets of Philadelphia, getting to know the men and women for whom these streets were their only home. The more I developed relationships with them and the more I got to know them, the harder it became to head home at night while they remained outside.

In time, I came to a powerful insight: When we see a person on the street we can no longer pass by and piously say, “There but for the grace of God go I” – but rather “There go I.”  As Dr. King taught us:  “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

I have had many great teachers – including Georgianna Simmons, who lost nine of her toes to frostbite on the streets of Philadelphia, and who, despite a daunting mental illness, was a powerful advocate and woman of great love.  Or Tanisha Clanton, who spent the first ten years of her life in shelters, and now is in college pursing a degree in art education so she can use the arts as a tool for educating inner-city youth.  Or Joe Williams, who turned his years of addiction into a passion for recovery and now, with a college degree, runs a recovery house for homeless men.

I’ve been doing this work for more than 30 years, and I’ve been radically changed. People who have nothing have taught me so much about life and grace, about faith and compassion.

Among the lessons they have taught me is that ultimately, people who are homeless and poor need the same opportunities we all need:  decent, affordable housing; quality education; employment; and access to health care.

More significantly, their lives so eloquently witness to the fundamental truth of the dignity of every person.  Contrary to our society, which values those who it deems productive and prosperous and often marginalizes those who struggle with homelessness, I believe that every man, woman, and child possesses gifts, worth, and potential.  Everyone matters!

And so I envision and work for a society in which each person is given the opportunity and resources to achieve their fullest potential and to contribute to the common good.

I also believe that our greatest power is unleashed when people come together across social boundaries to form a community united by a common vision.  It is through “the power of we,” as our friend and partner, Jon Bon Jovi reminds us, that we come to know the deepest truth of our humanity.

At the end of the day, this is what I truly believe: “None of us are truly home until all of us are home.”

Will O’Brien, who has been part of the Project H.O.M.E. community since 1989, recounts a memorial service for a beloved resident, Sarae Moore.  A version of this article was published in Horizons magazine in 2009.

Hardly had I passed through the door when I sensed an unusual serenity.  The spacious community room was clean and well lit.  The walls were adorned with vividly-colored canvasses, the work of homeless artists.  Some forty-odd chairs were set in a semi-circle. Karen, a formerly homeless woman who lives with a particularly daunting mental illness, was playing hymns on the console piano in the corner.  Others, like me, were entering the room in a reverential quiet, taking a program from the small table at the entrance.  Instead of the usual bustle of meetings, an almost sacred calm held sway.

At the front of the room, a simple table was converted into a makeshift altar: a white lace tablecloth, topped by a lit candle, a vase of flowers, and a photo of Sarae.

The slightly grainy photo captured Sarae perfectly:  the close-cropped hair, her slightly dour and wrinkled face, with the gentling curves of a tight smile.  The look in her eyes, true to life, suggested she was both present to you and at the same time distant, in her own world.

Sarae Moore lived for many years at Project H.O.M.E.'s 1515 Fairmount Avenue residence.

Sarae’s death shocked us.  Earlier that spring, a regular check-up showed some alarming irregularities in her liver.  Sarae maintained her daily regiment, until just a few short weeks ago, when she took the unprecedented step of leaving her thrift store job a few hours early due to fatigue.  The awful discovery:  cancer, malevolent, advanced, untreatable.  Sarae mustered a soft stoicism, never complaining of pain.  Without fuss or fanfare, she made her peace, expressing gratefulness for a long life.  Her one insistence: she wanted to stay “at home,” in her small, tidy room at our permanent, supportive residence for persons who had been homeless and lived with a mental illness.  Her case worker and the rest of the staff did yeoman’s duty to realize Sarae’s simple desire.  Fate took its course quickly.  Just a few weeks later, she lay dying on her bed, her friend and fellow resident Cass holding her hand as she passed from us.

Sarae had been a touchstone of our community.  She first moved into our Fairmount Avenue residence some thirteen years earlier.  Her arrival came on the heels of a political maelstrom:  our development of this permanent housing facility had been blocked for five years by particularly trenchant and well-oiled political and legal forces who didn’t want “those people” in their neighborhood.  After a long and draining string of courtroom challenges, street marches and rallies—all marked by a fierce public debate on fair housing and neighborhood safety—the facility finally opened.   It was a major fair-housing victory and the advent of a high-quality, dignified home for 48 men and women who had worked hard to escape the clutches of the streets.

Sarae’s self-effacing demeanor was a stark contrast to the sturm-und-drang that had occasioned the opening of hew new home.  Prior to coming to Fairmount Avenue, Sarae has spent some time in our transitional house for persons with mental illness.  We knew little about her history, her background, her experience of homelessness.  Had she been married?  Did she have any family anywhere?  In all the time she was with us, she had lived closed to the bone, revealing only the scantest traces of her past.

But for all that lay hidden beneath her ferociously guarded demeanor, Sarae had an impact on all of us.  Now as we gathered in the Fairmount Avenue community room to mourn, to remember, to celebrate, the repercussions of her simple life would be expressed with due reverence.

We read a little Scripture.  With Karen’s piano accompanying us, we sang some hymns.   And, with Sara’s photo looking out at us all, we shared who she had been to us.  Various residents, staff members, and friends, some on the edge of tears, reminisced

To a person, we all recalled her quiet personality, but we were just as unanimous that her kindness and gentleness had left its mark on us.  Fellow residents had been encouraged and strengthened by Sarae’s caring spirit.  We were all taken by her dutiful dependence putting in her hours as an employee of our two jobs programs, a café and a thrift store.  People spoke of how, when you made a purchase, Sarae would diligently count out your change with time-consuming exactitude – never failing to wish you a good day with her trademark smile.  One resident remarked how Sarae would have appreciated the brightly colored flowers on the altar – flowers and greenery were a staple ornament in her otherwise sparsely furnished room.

Hearing the various recollections, some tinged with tears, others with chuckles, I found my mind unexpectedly wandering back to distant memories, some I hadn’t thought of for years.  Old images were coming to me, unbidden, of my first encounters with persons on the streets of Philadelphia.  Shortly after arriving in the city twenty years earlier, a young and fervent do-gooder, I did a weekly volunteer stint of street outreach.  Homelessness was still a fairly new social phenomenon, one that bewildered and frustrated the collective social conscience of the city, as well as its human service system.  Each Thursday night I went out, as part of a pair of two well-intentioned non-professionals, to walk the streets of Center City, armed with coffee, sandwiches, and note pads.  We encountered folks, made a stab at some minimally decent and affirming human contact, offered our meager wares, tried to understand their situation, and if possible, gave them helpful contact information about shelter and services (which were in slim supply).

Among the troubled urban refugees we met were those then labeled “bag ladies” – women with serious mental illness, many elderly, most of whom had been discharged from psychiatric hospitals in a criminal perversion of social policy.  Their plight pricked the conscience of the professional service providers but defied their best efforts.  Dozens of them lived on the streets.  Week after week we got to know them – Marian, Jean, Ruth, others.  Each one had staked out her personal geography, often in the niche of a building, surrounded by milk crates and sundry belongings.  We usually knew where to find them – and when we arrived, we experienced a strange and moving ritual in which they invited us into their makeshift “homes,” often offering us snacks or drinks that they had procured in their daily scavenging.  The women had also formed a sort of community of mutual support.  It was not unusual for one of them to say, “You should keep an eye out for Lucy – she doesn’t seem too well, and I haven’t seen her.  She might be down in Suburban Station.”

These street encounters evoked a storm of wildly varying feelings in me.  I felt a rage that humans beings could be so wretchedly neglected and forced to live in such horrendous conditions.  At the same time, I experienced a deep awe at the beauty and dignity of these women – as if they were revealing wonders of the human spirit hitherto unknown to me.  It was also not unusual for me to head home after my three hours of outreach burdened with a crushing sense of helplessness – how could I save these women, how could I possible alleviate this travesty of suffering?

Looking at Sarae’s face in the photograph and hearing the sundry testimonies about her, I then found my mind wandering to yet another startling, long dormant memory.  As part of my deepening commitment and advocacy, I had taken up with a gang of Philadelphia’s fairly radical Christian activists, many of whom had logged years working with and on behalf of folks in poor communities and socially marginalized situations.  One rather dramatic experience from those days was an annual pilgrimage I would make every Good Friday with a couple of other folks, a grizzled ex-veteran-turned-peace-activist and a renegade Catholic priest.  We would travel to a far corner of the Northeast, to a neighborhood I am sure I could never find today.  My priest friend had learned of a plot of land that functioned as a municipal “potter’s field” – an unnamed, unmarked graveyard where the City would bury the bodies of persons who had died alone and anonymously.  Many of those buried were homeless persons who had died on the streets.  We were convinced and convicted that the degradation these unknown brothers and sisters had experienced in their lives should not extend into the further indignity of an unhonored death.  So we went there to hold a brief prayer service, a belated memorial, a meager effort to hallow their passing and scrap a bit of decency out of the awful tragedy of dying alone and abandoned.

For much of the next two decades, I had the opportunity to participate in building programs that provided concrete solutions to the struggles of many homeless men and women on the streets.  For a couple of years, I worked with Women of Hope, a pair of small residences that were built in the 1980s that offered a dignified and caring home for many of the same women I knew from the streets.  I joined with an amazing group of persons who founded and developed Project H.O.M.E., starting with temporary, makeshift emergency shelters for some of the especially vulnerable men on the streets and growing into a nationally recognized program of multiple residences and comprehensive services.  In those almost twenty years, I was blessed to be part of an impassioned, energetic, and talented group of people – including some remarkable men and women who themselves had experienced homelessness, poverty, addiction, and mental illness.  These folks formed a community of relentless hope, turning visions into reality, starting with impossibilities and ending up with effective solutions.  Over the course of several years, I witnessed hundreds of lives transformed and renewed.

Two decades of memories circled back to the present moment.  We were gathered, in the welcoming environment of this community room, in a facility where the three upper floors provided secure and dignified homes for men and women who had known life on the streets as well as the chronic struggle of severe mental illness.  We had come from different corners of society – some from experiences of extreme poverty, some from comfort and privilege.  Our presence in this room was made possible by the struggle and persistence, the organizing and activism, of many persons, some themselves homeless and poor.

We gathered as a community to grieve, remember, and celebrate a sister.  This had been Sarae’s home; these people, her family.  She had not died alone and anonymous: her death was hallowed and enveloped in loving care by a group of persons whose lives she had enriched in her quiet way.

We struggle to ensure that all persons in our society have a chance at a decent life.  But perhaps just as important is a decent death.  And perhaps that is one of the meanings of home:  the place where we can die in grace and dignity.

Kara Smith works with Project H.O.M.E.’s Employment Services program and coordinates our Arts Program.  She is a full-time intern through the Servant Year program. 

Creating art is a key to healing for many people in recovery. It is a healthy way for folks to experience personal fulfillment and to express themselves imaginatively, honestly, and spontaneously. Each piece of art has a story to tell and a statement to make. The Art Program at Project H.O.M.E. gives voice to many by providing participants with a creative outlet, and an opportunity to showcase their talents, build confidence, and break down barriers inside and outside of Project H.O.M.E.

James Webster hangs pieces for Project H.O.M.E.'s Spring Art Show.

James Webster, a current resident of Kate’s Place in Center City, has been an art instructor for Project H.O.M.E.’s Art Program since 2004. As the newest coordinator of the Art Program, I have considered it a blessing to witness James’s passion for art and his dedication and knowledge as an artist, curator, and instructor. He arrives like clockwork each Monday for art class. He sets out supplies and gives advice to participants as they work on their individual projects. He spends countless hours around the openings of art shows selecting, framing, and labeling works to be displayed.

James is in his element as he carefully aligns and arranges paintings on his “canvas” of a white, empty wall. It has been a delight to hear him share stories of his past – both the struggles and the triumphs – and to hear about the projects he works on in the quiet of the night when the rest of the world is sleeping, in the art studio he lovingly calls the Salt Mines.

James’s interest in art began in the 1980’s when fear of potential cancer caused his mother to suggest looking for a job to take his mind off of the daunting possibility. Instead of seeking employment, he found himself spending hours in the library immersed in the biographies of well-known writers and artists. He related to their tragic stories and instances of sickness and death and thought perhaps he too could express himself through art. Soon, he began painting and developing collages using materials that were readily accessible to him. He discovered that plywood used to board up the houses in the housing project where he lived made a wonderfully flat canvas, and so did the glass that littered the streets. Paving a way for his voice to be heard, James would strap his pieces on his back and bicycle or take the bus down to Rittenhouse Square in order to display his work. Soon, the Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, a cooperative gallery, asked him to become a member. He was the first male and the first African American artist to become a member and remained an active participant for nearly twenty years.

One of James's collages: "McDeath (IV Diabetes Dialysis - I'm lovin' it)"

James works in a variety of media ranging from sculpture to photography to the medium that earned him the nickname King Kolage – collages. His artwork forcefully grabs your attention. It screams with social and cultural underpinnings and is sometimes hard to look at because of the weight of its subjects. In the Art from the Heart gallery at 535 South Street where Project H.O.M.E. artists recently showed, James displayed collages including Thanks But No Thanks (Junk Food Kitchen), Extinct: (Pencil and Paper), and Cut the Crap (Sex & Violence in the Media).

In addition to his visual art, James created the Kicker Magazine, a collection of essays and collages on the subjects of genetic engineering, nuclear power, money, art, politics, and food in America. He is also the producer of Barbara’s Barbie’s, a 15-minute video focused on the prevalence of violence in American media and culture and its infiltration into the lives of children. James Webster is a phenomenal asset to Project H.O.M.E.’s Art Program both as an artist and an instructor. He is a rabble-rouser and a path-paver. He stirs up the passions and prejudices of those who witness his creations. He is also just one of the many multi-talented artists at Project H.O.M.E. who find power and purpose through art.

Some of the pieces that will be on display at Project H.O.M.E.'s Spring Art Show, opening April 14.

To see their life-changing creations of many of our Project H.O.M.E. artists, make a point to stop by the Spring Art Show this Thursday, April 14, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at 1515 Fairmount, as well as the Fairmount Arts Crawl on Sunday afternoon, April 17, where their art will be on display at Prudential Fox & Roach at 2451 Fairmount Avenue.

Our outreach worker Sam Santiago (who was profiled in the two part series by Kim Covella on H.O.M.E. Word) recently recieved this message via Facebook.    It says a lot about why we do the work we do each day.

Edwina Grant works in the After School Program at Project H.O.M.E.’s Honickman Learning Center/Comcast Technology Labs.

March 1, 2006 was the worst day I ever had in my life. On that day my nineteen-year-old son Samir was shot and killed on our block by a fifteen-year neighbor boy, for no reason.

No family should ever have to go through what my family had to go through. My husband died a year later, partly because he couldn’t bear the terrible grief. Also, no family should ever have to go through what the other family is going through – they’ve been affected, too, knowing the terrible crime their child committed.

People don’t understand the devastation that is caused when someone picks up a gun and uses it to kill. I believe people have the right to protect their families, and guns in the right hands can be OK. But I know a fifteen-year-old shouldn’t be running around a neighborhood with a handgun. We’re supposed to be a civilized country. My neighborhood is full of guns, just like neighborhoods across the city and state – and I know for sure there aren’t deer hunters or gun collectors in my neighborhood.

That’s why I am grateful to Lynne Honickman for starting Moms Against Guns. This viral campaign has given me and others a way to organize against illegal guns. We need your help. Right now, Project H.O.M.E. is partnering with Moms Against Guns and CeaseFire PA to collect signatures on a letter to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett. The letter urges the Governor to support laws that keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people, and to increase affordable and supportive housing to help end homelessness.

In memory of Samir and other victims who have died, I am asking you to go to the online letter and sign it – and encourage friends and colleagues to do the same. Together, we can build a stronger grassroots movement to end gun violence in our communities across the state.

Just the other night in my neighborhood, another young boy was shot in the head. Two more families were destroyed. We’ve got to do all we can to stop this horror. You can make a difference.

To sign the letter, click here.