At Steps Up, we make a difference!"Yea, right! You and everyone else. The difference is in our basic idea of how the problem needs to be solved.
If we were a city, we would want the homeless shuffled away, far out of sight of anyone who might visit our area. We don't want taxpayers and consumers looking at them and leaving, thinking that we are a dirty, unkempt city with unresolved problems. We certainly wouldn't want them to think we don't care about these people either. So the best answer, quite often, is to find ways to make them leave on their own, or rustle them up like cows, and put them in a holding pen somewhere that the common populus can't see them. Some communities even go to the extreme of making them move around from place to place, giving them absolutely no sense of where they belong.
If we were like most churches and nonprofit organizations, we would open a soup kitchen and a shelter, and show our compassion by feeding and sheltering them. We would lovingly take them into our arms, and care for them like helpless children. The problem is that they are not hopeless children. They are homeless people who have real problems that need a real solution.
Alojamiento en hotel barato HvolsvollurThe fact is that there are several programs in existence today which aid in "removing" homeless and transient people off the streets and out of sight by feeding and sheltering them. They do this, of course in the name of charity with the disguise of love. While it is true that parents love their children, they sometimes let them fall or falter, or punish them in order to teach them. But letting them stay in the wrong does not teach them. Allowing them to stay fallen with no hope of getting up is more of a torture than an act of kindness.
Society has been good at finding temporary answers to a permanent social problem. They have paid millions to put a band-aid on a broken leg, without examining the wound and giving it the correct medicine. Flop houses and soup kitchens may be compassionate, but they only propigate the existing problem. They cause the problem to continue by making it relatively easy to remain homeless for long periods of time, while not promoting the social change and reform necessary to actually help these people.
At Steps Up, we provide training in social and job skills. We teach them the necessary skills enabling them to overcome their problems and become useful and profitable members of society once again.
As the old saying goes, "Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime. "We believe that a combination of social and job skills training is the ONLY true answer to this problem.
By helping these people to be reintegrated with society, we help not only them, but in a greater view, society as a whole. As these people reenter the job market, we help to decrease joblessness, along with it's social financial burden. We teach these people to pay their bills and handle other social and financial responsibilities. They move out into apartments, pay their bills, purchase food and other commodities, and pay off old debts, and more money is moved throughout the local economy, as well as taxes paid to the government. This, in the larger scheme, helps the entire economy to grow. Fix the broken leg, and the body becomes more productive.
We also teach them to give back to society what has been offered to them. To donate their own time and resources to help others like themselves.
In addition, by helping these people out of poverty, we help clean up littered and impoverished areas, and our efforts carry on to a much greater social level. Like ripples in a pool, the effects continue on indefinitely.
It isn't an easy task. We never thought it would be. Nor do we believe that we will ever completely abolish homelessness. There will be those who do not want to change, and there will be organizations catering to them. But we will help those whom we can. And we will need help in doing so - -
ERROR MSGWe need your help.
Donations help offset the cost immensely - and not just money! Volunteers, land, vehicles, equipment and supplies. We are constantly in need of clothing, toiletries, books ( we have a list ), building and office supplies.
If you are interested in helping, in any capacity, please contact us. We are a Federal and State recognized non profit organization.
stepsup@stepsup.org
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