Hi everyone!
My name is Sandra Holt, and I am a part-time member serving with Every Woman’s Place/Webster House Youth Services in Muskegon. I want to start out by saying that this year has been a real eye-opener! I decided to apply for this position after interning with this agency last summer. It has been a great way for me to develop in skills in other areas (previous experience was working with delinquent youth and adult victims of domestic violence/sexual assault) and help address this social injustice. I am very proud of the accomplishments I’ve made this year, and more importantly, the people that I’ve helped. It has solidified my notion that I want a career in the social work field, and I’ll be attending a social work graduate program in the fall.
At this agency, Tenant Based Rental Assistance helps assist homeless families and youth with long-term rental assistance. By providing funding for apartments, we hope to set up clients for successful, sustainable housing after the program phases out. While in theory, this program makes a lot of sense (and with some clients it definitely plays out well), I’ve noticed a lot of our clients haven’t been able to sustain housing once rental assistance was over. This is disheartening because we work hard to try and motivate them for their own benefit, but sometimes clients can’t find jobs or just aren’t interested in making the extra effort. This isn’t always the case… We have clients who flourish and really make strides during their time in programming. We provide casework services and attempt to link them with other services in the community, but I guess I am wondering if any of you have had similar experiences with clients, essentially, falling apart and becoming homeless again? We try to teach them life skills and set them up for success by being a support system and resource guide, but it doesn’t always work out. Anyone have any thoughts or insight on this?
-Sandra Holt
Unfortunately, we have had clients with similar results here. Folks who started programs off strong, but once the program finished, their lives fell apart, again.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a more fundamental instability exists for these clients. Consequently, three to six months of case management is just not enough. Whether this instability is intrinsic or extrinsic to the the client, I don't know.
However, the reality is that there is probably some combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsically, clients may be resistant to long-term behavior changes that would benefit their well-being. Extrinsically, clients are dealing with substantial barriers such as the lack of (well paying) employment, transportation, or affordable housing).
Whatever the theory is behind all this, it is frustrating to say the least. There are a handful of clients I have intaked three times in the last two years. There are those clients that are calling me back the month after their program was completed. It makes me question what it means to help, and ask "How do we help in these situations?"
Michael Shank
NMCAA-Petoskey