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Shenandoah County Living
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ENJOY! NOVEMBER 2014
Homeless families go unnoticed in county By Tom Crosby o one knows how many homeless families live in Shenandoah County. “It’s a deep, dark secret no one wants to talk about,” said Mary Ann Gardner, who years ago was homeless with two children aged 9 and 13 for more than a year, living in her car and dressing for job interviews inside a storage unit. In Shenandoah County, homeless families may temporarily live in tents in the George Washington National Forest, sleep overnight in cars parked at well-lit malls, or stay briefly with friends and relatives until they become a burden and have to leave. Many try to remain invisible and confess fear of losing their children to Social Services if it becomes known they don’t have permanent shelter, money, food or clothing and are unable to find a job. The swirl of issues surrounding the homeless -- social stigma, lack of employable skills, unpaid debts, poverty -- helped spur Woodstock’s Antioch Church of the Brethren to seek a nationally known, communitywide program in cooperation with other county churches to help Shenandoah County’s homeless families as a unit. “Children are generally at the greatest risk among homeless families,” said the Rev. George Bowers Sr., pastor at Antioch Church. Along with other churches, Antioch is partnering with Family Promise, which operates in 48 states with a 77 percent success rate in helping homeless families stay together and get back on their feet. Once a dozen or more of Shenandoah County’s 120 churches commit to the program, said Bowers, then shelter, food, clothing, counseling and cooperation with county services and resources will be provided for families totaling a maximum of 14 people. “We know there is a problem,” said Donna Hupp of the Strasburg Christian Church. “I know of a mother with five children, but we don’t have the resources in the county to help her right now. We need this program. If we combine our (community and church) resources, we can provide them the opportunity to gain skills and get back on their feet. People need to get involved instead of just writing a check.” “Some people say they also want to help homeless men and women, but we can’t help everybody,” said Hupp. “It would be tremendous just to help one family. Sometimes we just lose the value of helping just one family.” Family Promise’s premise is to keep the family intact through the recovery process. Social Services of Shenandoah County understands the need for a cohesive family unit, but employees understand their legislated mandate is to protect children first and neglect, which often accompanies homelessness, means they sometimes have to put children in foster homes until parents can once again care for them. Whenever possible, they try to work with the families as a unit when the children are not at risk. Libby Rocco, who attends Wakeman’s Grove Church of the Brethren, is leading the church recruitment effort, and said five or more additional churches are needed to begin and ensure successful operation right from the start.
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The Rev. George Bowers, pastor of Antioch Church of the Brethren in Woodstock, stands in front of this van that was donated by First Baptist Church, also of Woodstock. The van will be used to transport homeless families to and from churches to a proposed day center in the Woodstock area. Antioch Church of the Brethren and a dozen or more area churches have partnered with Family Promise to help struggling families. Rich Cooley/Daily “There is no reason to start and burn out the (already committed) churches,” she said. “They commit to helping one week a quarter or four times a year, with the host church providing shelter, food and transportation and interaction with county resources.” Adding to the urgency to get the program started is a fire that destroyed the Shenandoah Alliance for Shelter in April, and it is not being rebuilt, Rocco said. Churches committed so far are St. John’s Methodist Church; St. John’s Bosco Catholic Church; Saumsville and Strasburg Christian Churches, and Valley Pike, Wakeman’s Grove and Antioch Churches of the Brethren. Currently, the Shenandoah County Public Schools has 26 children who are homeless, according to Debby Litten, Supervisor of Student Services. “We need their permission to declare them homeless and we have students who don’t want to be declared homeless,” Litten said. “We still give them forms to fill out so they can get free lunch at school.” Counselors at the school work with the families when children are declared homeless. Litten said of the 26 children, 22 live with relatives or friends, three are in a shelter and one lives in a hotel. “One lady called me and she has a single bedroom apartment. Her daughter and sonin-law and three children had moved in with her and she was afraid her lease would be canceled. She was hoping the program had started,” said Rocco. “Just because they are not visible on our streets, people don’t think it is a problem but it is,” said Hupp. For more information or to volunteer, call 540-459-3361.
Strasburg woman recalls family homelessness By Tom Crosby She was a housewife living in Northern California when her husband walked out on her and their two children, triggering foreclosure on their home and repossession of her car. Without a job, Mary Ann Gardner (her current name) became head of a homeless family, and when a friend gave her an old Rambler, she and the children, aged 9 and 13, often had to sleep in the car as she tried to keep her children in school. “Living in a car is no fun, we packed everything in the trunk and I had friends who let me use their address because the school needed a permanent address,” said Gardner, now 63, often struggling to control her emotions as she dredged up buried memories that she says left a permanent mental scar. “It was a crucial time for my children,” she said as the kids bounced around from house to house. “They would stay at someone’s house, but it was never a home,” said Gardner, who was in her late 30s at the time. “They both fell behind at school and it affected their lives forever. Neither graduated from high school.” “The car, probably worth $200, had a broken gas gauge that made me have to guess when I needed gas and worry if I could pay for it,” she said. “I would get dressed in a closed-up storage area to look like a normal human being when I applied for a job.” “The humiliation you go through when
people look at you ... it destroys your self-esteem and it is hard to be functional in your daily life and get back on a schedule, getting kids to do their homework,” she said. What about asking social services or community programs for help? “I wasn’t about to tell anyone I didn’t have to tell that we were homeless. My children were the most important thing to me and I told them not to tell anyone our circumstances. I didn’t want to have to fight to get them back. I would have gone over the deep end,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been so difficult if I could have gone to social services and gotten aid, but I couldn’t ask them for anything. They would have had to take my children. Social services protects the children, not the family,” she said. Eventually, an attorney offered her a job; she sold everything she could to get a down payment on an apartment, and later moved back to Strasburg when the children were 18 years of age. Today, she is a program director for the Shenandoah County Agency for the Aging, has been remarried for 15 years and has been active in helping her church commit to participating in Family Promise. “I wish this program was available when I was homeless and we could have stayed together as a family while getting help,” she said. Her children live in California. Today, both have good jobs and families of their own.
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