The Common Denominator

Last week I celebrated my one-year anniversary working at The Mustard Seed. I really thought that by this point, I would be a legitimate expert on how to address the issues of poverty and homelessness. Feel free to break here for a good minute of laughter, then meet me back in reality. I promise you’ll be glad you came along for the ride.

When I started here, I joined a fresh-faced team in the newly-established Employment Centre. The learning curve was steep, but so exciting. I embraced the Housing-First model and revelled in the idea that helping people find and sustain meaningful employment was the secret to success that no one else had uncovered. I started to break down all of the old stereotypes I had previously (and secretly) held, replacing them with new theories on the common denominators of homelessness. Though we faced challenges, as a team we pressed on towards building a supported employment program that would work for everyone: a silver bullet straight through the heart of poverty, giving people a real “hand up” and eliminating the need for “hand outs”.

It’s easy to get excited about programs like this one, because on a broad scale, the statistics show that they are working. Over 300 people housed since the launch of our housing program, Aftercare, and over 100 people employed; sustainable life change is happening right there in the numbers.

When I see the success in these figures, my initial reaction is to jump to the next big idea: people who are homeless don’t need food or temporary shelter, they just need to be supported in the “bigger” challenges of life, and the rest will fall into place.

Let’s fast forward to two days before my one-year anniversary. I was in the Denver airport dreaming up this blog post and how I would report on every piece of quantitative data I could find about what had been achieved in the last 365 days. I guess I did a little too much daydreaming, because I didn’t catch the gate change or boarding announcements, and there I was, missing my first flight ever. Thankfully, though, I wasn’t alone.

Ida is a lovely woman of about the same age as my mother who missed her connection from California on her way to see her son and his young family in Red Deer. As we hurried together between customer service counters and departure gates, we bonded over frustrations with United Airlines, but soon learned that we had more in common than we thought.

When we finally sat down for a drink in the lounge, Ida asked what I did for work. I told her about The Mustard Seed and her face began to glow. “I used to get meals from a place like that back home 20 years ago,” she told me. “That’s good work you’re doing. Important work.”

She went on to tell me about her struggles with addictions, living in her car, her family’s “tough love” approach. It wasn’t a sob story, but a story of hope. She explained how this unnamed organization in Southern California saved her life starting with a meal. Taken aback, I clarified: “So really? That’s what you needed? Just some food?” “ And some people who cared. They got me by until I was ready to change.”

I’m sure my face was glowing by this point, too, as I began to reconsider everything I thought I’d learned in the past year. I started to think of the innovative food programs I had been hearing about and how we could implement them here, bringing the focus back to the basics. Maybe we need to make sure everyone in the city is fed before we can get them housed and employed. The wheels were turning quickly: affordable organic markets, pay-what-you-can restaurants. I could see the success rates soaring. And then the wheels stopped.

I looked at Ida, her kind eyes and the deep, intricate pattern of lines surrounding them, her flowing silver hair falling on her tanned, leather shoulders. She is a portrait of a human being, uniquely different from every single person standing in the meal line, every Aftercare participant, every newly-employed client. Her experiences cannot be captured with quantitative statistics, but they are an inspiring story of success that encourages me to keep doing the “important work” much more than figures and innovative programming ever will.

As I embark on my second year at The Mustard Seed, I still believe in Housing-First and the supported employment model. I still have hope that we can find new ways to meet basic needs in a healthy and empowering way. The difference this year will be that I will be giving the statistics faces and remembering that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to helping a person rebuild their lives. I'm far from being an expert, but I will leave room for one common denominator: that person will always know that someone cares. 

- Lydia
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