Project Homeless Connect - Guest Blogger Denise Daniels

On a recent unseasonably warm Tuesday afternoon in January, I had the privilege of volunteering at Project Homeless Connect Fair coordinated by Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness. It was a privilege because it isn’t often that working as a volunteer that you can be involved in such an important project that can make such a difference in someone’s life.
 

The Project Homeless Connect Fair is held twice a year and offers those experiencing homelessness to receive housing assistance, social services, hospitality; including haircuts and clothing as well as access to a doctor, dentist and chiropractor. In addition, breakfast and a hot lunch are served to attendees. For many, it’s a time to relax from the stress of the street and have the opportunity to connect with agencies that might be able to offer a way out of the situation they are in.
 

My ‘job’ that day was to do intake. Many of the questions were routine; age; last address and military status, but then I had to ask the hard questions; how long have you been homeless and how did you become homeless. The answers were difficult to hear. Many had been homeless for extended periods of time and the reasons that they became homeless were not that varied. Many explained that a family situation; a death in the family or for some it was the loss of a job or losing a lease or even foreclosure. No matter what the reason, I kept thinking that any one of us could be in this situation, it might only take one bad break or one bad decision. “There but for the grace of God, go I….”
 

Homelessness is a growing problem not only here in Mercer County, but throughout the country. But to most of us homelessness is a word, it doesn’t have a face, it doesn’t have humanity. Many of us, myself included, see someone who is homeless and walk right by, thinking this problem is too big for me to handle, and maybe alone it is. But I’d like to think that that Tuesday afternoon, along with many other volunteers, I stopped, I took the time to say hello, offered some solace and maybe helped someone back on their way to a better situation.