Safe Haven Family Shelter of Nashville provides an all-encompassing system to help end and prevent homelessness by empowering people to build a new life and support themselves. The folks at Safe Haven accomplish this through education, job training, housing, financial counseling, daycare, health and wellness education and a grand array of other programs.
Not to smack you with a Mother Teresa quote from the get-go, but the lady has some wisdom: “Love is not patronizing and charity isn’t about pity. It is about love. Charity and love are the same—with charity you give love. So don’t just give money, but reach out your hand.”
Homelessness in America has increased this year for the first time since The Great Recession, and with this, I realize the extreme importance Safe Haven Family Shelter holds for Nashville. The non-profit has been a vital component of Nashville for over 30 years, but more than ever it seems we must band together to help one another.
Safe Haven has the only shelter-to-housing program in Middle Tennessee that houses the entire family, as many facilities only permit the mother to be housed with the children. This non-profit is concerned about maintaining the family unit, which is key in ensuring success for the children.
I don’t want to give you some sad, sappy story about pitiful people. That’s not what this is about. This is about empowering one another to thrive and grow as human beings together. Safe Haven enables the individual to build a new life. It’s not just about handouts or giving cans of food and blankets around the holidays (although that is beneficial in many ways). Safe Haven makes it possible for our fellow Nashvillians to create a sustainable, self-sufficient and fulfilling life for themselves and their family.
In the summer of 2016 I traveled the country for months volunteering at food banks and homeless shelters while personally simulating homelessness by living in my car and camping wherever I traveled. I learned quickly that it is extraordinarily difficult to function as a normal human being in society when you don’t have a home. It was uncomfortable and exhausting trying to find somewhere to shower daily, a bathroom (multiple times a day *gasp!*), a place to cook food, change clothes, sleep or even just to sit without being questioned or disturbed. It became burdensome to exist.
It’s difficult to find a job when you don’t have anywhere to shower, to work on a resume or change clothes. It’s difficult when you don’t have the clothes to wear to a job interview or the money or a car to get you to the job interview. Sometimes we just need a little help to pull ourselves out of a difficult, wearisome situation.
That’s what Safe Haven does for the city of Nashville.
My experiences on the road forced me to realize just how crucial organizations like Safe Haven Family Shelter are for society, for our fellow humans—for Nashvillians.
Some of us grow up in families that are able to help and support us in times of extreme need and difficulty. Some of us have friends who show up in tough times, but some of us aren’t able to fall back on anyone. People end up in circumstances out of their control. Also, frankly, sometimes we humans make poor choices leading us down a road we never intended, and it’s often arduous turning around and trudging through it alone. Safe Haven provides the helping hand to pull one out of the trenches.
I think we need to realize that we are all humans, and we’re all in this together. We could all use a helping hand at some point in our lives, whether it be mentally, emotionally, physically, financially or all of the above. I believe we become accustomed to passing homeless people on the street, and we just refer to them as “the homeless.” That term feels more like a thing or entity rather than a physical, flesh human-being struggling to stay alive. This isn’t an “us versus them” circumstance. This is just…us. We—we’re all trying to make it in this crazy, unpredictable world.
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The shelter has a myriad of programs forming a system which not only treats the symptoms of homelessness but tackles the root causes, bringing clients to self-sufficiency. They have adult education, children’s after school programs and tutoring, budgeting, housing programs, daycare, resume building, financial counseling, health and wellness education and whole host of other specific aids for their clients.
By supporting Safe Haven, we support the programs, infrastructure, trained employees and volunteers that make it possible to help our neighbors in this town reassemble a life well-lived. Each person who contributes to Safe Haven is a puzzle piece in the reassembling of these beautiful lives the clients finally have the opportunity to experience.
It’s enlivening to be a part of positive growth. I wholeheartedly believe we grow by helping others, putting ourselves in others’ situations, listening and by trying to understand an alternate stance or experience of another human being.
As seen in a recent survey, there are nearly 2,500 homeless persons in Nashville each night. Though Safe Haven functions as optimally as possible, there are only so many individuals and families they can house and help each day. By donating money and time, we can help create more infrastructure to facilitate the rebuilding process of each person’s life.
Here’s some stuff to click on:
https://www.classy.org/fundraiser/1199320
References:
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2016/12/14/homelessness-nashville-spikes-10-percent/95419066/