Jake Browning
reporter@thefranklinpress.com
The plight of the homeless is easy to see in big cities, but in rural communities like Macon County, homelessness can be nearly invisible.
But the homeless are there, sleeping on a friend’s couch or in their cars, maybe living in a tent in the woods. They are often out of sight and out of mind, difficult to reach and hard to help. Like most rural communities, Macon County doesn’t have a dedicated homeless shelter, so helping them falls to a loose network of nonprofits and social services organizations.
Homelessness is a complex, multi-faceted problem that defies simple solutions. Factors that lead to homelessness can include domestic violence, drug use and other mental health issues.
Quantifying homelessness in Macon County can be difficult. Bob Bourke, president of Macon New Beginnings, said his organization is aware of 53 homeless people in the county right now. However, that number is complicated by people being helped by residential programs like REACH of Macon County, those serving time in jail or those living in temporary housing situations.
Macon New Beginnings also doesn’t have unlimited contact with people at risk of losing their homes, which Bourke said tends to be a very sudden occurrence.
“At any given time, between 40-60 percent of American families can’t afford an unexpected $500 expense,” Bourke said. “It can happen just like that.”
Homeless Students
Macon New Beginnings helped 212 people this year – 99 of them children. Carol Arnold, Title 1 consultant for Macon County Schools, said the school system has encountered 44 cases of student homelessness halfway through this school year. Any child who even temporarily loses access to a fixed, adequate residence is placed on that list for the whole year, so that number may be somewhat inflated, but children still make up about half of all of this year’s homelessness cases, and Arnold said students who are even temporarily homeless are at a natural disadvantage in their studies.
“Being homeless definitely affect their educational life,” Arnold said. “Knowing that their home life has been disrupted the way it has, we have to do what we can to keep them from being disrupted in school too.”
Getting immediate help can be as simple as showing up at Memorial Park on a Thursday night. That’s when Macon New Beginnings and a rotating crew of volunteers from 16 affiliated churches put on their weekly Serving Spoon dinner that anyone can join for free with no questions asked. Bourke said Serving Spoon is a great way to get people in the door, both as clients and volunteers, and getting the word out about what they do is the first essential step.
“We’re happy to have you, whoever you are,” Bourke said.
PROBLEMS COMPOUND
Just as there is no single cause of homelessness, there is no single solution. Homelessness magnifies the impacts of other challenges in a person’s life, from finding and keeping a job to feeding a family.
David Smith, director of the Macon Medication Assistance Program, said issues like homelessness, poverty, food insecurity and lack of access to necessary prescriptions tend to go hand in hand. As a result, a lot of his program’s clients suffer from issues that he isn’t fully prepared to help them address.
“We want to do everything we can to help anyone who comes through this door, but if they’re homeless or hungry or struggling to pay their bills on top of not being able to get their medications, all of those problems compound each other,” Smith said.
Fortunately, there are resources available to homeless people in Macon County outside of a shelter. Paula Alter, career center director for NCWorks, recognizes homelessness as one of a wide variety of extenuating factors that make it harder for clients of the career center to find a job and hold on to it. That’s why NCWorks makes a point of coordinating efforts like this month’s community resource fair to put job seekers in touch with nonprofits that can help them.
“You can’t get a job and keep it and do it well if you can’t count on a roof over your head when you leave at the end of the day,” Alter said. “You need every link in the chain to not only get a job but keep a job.”
Another challenge is getting homeless people the help they’re due.
Patrick Betancourt, director of the county’s Department of Social Services, said that enrolling in Medicaid, and the Supplemental Food and Nutrition Assistance Program can be an important step to getting homeless people back on their feet and that his department can help them through the process on request.
“Homelessness does not affect an individual or family’s ability to apply for Medicaid or Food and Nutrition Services,” Betancourt said. “There may be the misconception that homeless individuals are unable to apply for supportive services but, in fact, applying for and receiving services such as Medicaid and Food & Nutrition Assistance may be part of the solution to helping end homelessness.”
SHELTER NEEDED?
Most small communities, including Franklin, don’t have dedicated homeless shelters, while larger rural towns such as Waynesville are more likely to have a facility.
Last month, nonprofit medical clinic The Restoration House opened the Sweet Dreams Shelter in downtown Bryson City, with rooms available for male and female clients. Covenant House, the nation’s largest privately funded operates a facility in Murphy offering shelter, food and other assistance to youth ages 14 to 20.
Stigma plays a huge role in preventing homeless people from getting help. Not only does it make it more intimidating to seek out Macon New Beginnings and other entities for assistance, but it can also keep those resources from coming to an area in the first place. Bourke suspects that public disapproval of the people that shelters attract is the main reason why Macon County’s homeless citizens have to go as far as Murphy to stay in a shelter.
“Most of the time when people hear about the possibility of a shelter, their first thought is ‘not in my neighborhood,’” Bourke said. “Even if you have the resources and the location, it can still get shot down.”
For more information on services offered through Macon New Beginnings, go online to maconnewbeginnings.org or call 828-202-3103.
In a future article, The Franklin Press will take a look at the need for a shelter in Macon County.