200 in 100

Today marks one month until I finish my year in AmeriCorps. So surreal! This year has led me to so many crazy adventures, but I will save that post for August 23rd. Right now I want to tell you all about a campaign that we have going on at UNITY.

During a conference that some of my co-workers attended in the spring, they were challenged to set an ambitious goal. With that challenge, they set out to house 200 chronically homeless individuals in 100 days. And let me tell you, this is definitely an ambitious goal! To put this number in perspective, let me tell you our normal numbers. On average, we house about 42 people a month. In order to meet this goal, we would have to house about 65 people per month, and then some.

The campaign began May 24th, and today we have reached our halfway point of 100 people housed. For those doing the math, yes, we are behind schedule. We only have a month and a week left to house 100 more people, which according to our past numbers, seems impossible. However with the outreach team, housings specialists, and supporting agencies that we have, it somehow seems reachable. The work ethic and compassion these people have is unlike anything I've seen before.

Let me tell you a story of one of our housing specialist's who went above and beyond last week. First of all, a housing specialist is someone who helps a client find an apartment to move into after they've been approved for a specific program. Each client is referred to a program depending on their eligibility (this mostly has to do with length of homeless, type of health insurance, and type of disabilities). Once they are approved, their file is given to a housing specialist who will assist them in finding an apartment that they would move into. Last week, one of our clients had been approved for a program, but had lost all hope for housing. He had been living on the streets for quite a long time, and sometimes clients on the streets have a hard time holding onto hope. The housing specialist, realizing that the client had lost all hope for housing, went out at night with our Abandoned Buildings Outreach Team with two keys in her hand. She showed the client the tangible evidence that he could be housed--he had two options of apartments. The next day, the client was housed.

Our staff goes above and beyond. The housing specialist didn't have to do that--her work day ended at 5. She could have called it a day, but instead she went out late at night to the streets of New Orleans to track down someone who's life she was about to change.

It's people like this who make me think that reaching 200 housings in 100 days is plausible. It's a lot of work, and the stress in the office has been at an all-time high, but the number of clients housed has also been at an all-time high, and because of that, the stress level is worth it (sometimes).

Each night we go home to our warm beds, and each night we know that another client gets to enjoy his/her new warm bed instead of the cold, hard concrete. Hopefully, by August 31st, 200 chronically homeless people will be off of the streets of New Orleans, away from the danger, and locked safely behind their own front door.