Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Orange County Rescue Mission
At a recent conference called Children at Risk, I attended a workshop given by someone from the Orange County Rescue Mission. The title of the workshop talked about a model of mobile outreach rather than something specific to Orange County so needless to say, I was surprised and my eyes were opened to new information. I thought that I would blog about this because this is something closer to home, as a resident of Los Angeles, and because it indicates that there are opportunities to help everywhere. When I think of Orange County (aside from the fact that it's the "OC" and we seldom venture there except out of necessity since it's quite a drive - particularly in traffic), I hardly ever think of homeless. But apparently there are a large number of homeless in the OC and most of them are families (70% in fact according to their website) - families that cannot afford the rent, that are not good with money management, end up living in motels with their children, and then finally end up on the streets or a shelter. There are over 30,000 homeless in OC! The Orange County Rescue Mission has implemented programs to assist these homeless families and work with them to empower them and bring them out of the homeless situation utilizing mobile outreach as well as numerous other services. For more information, visit their website by clicking here.
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just found this cause i was wanting to email the rescue mission. Sad that it happens. There are many homeless. I was once homeless for nine months in oc. You don't see them because they get arrested if they sleep in the public eye unlike la county where homeless sleep on the sidewalks of the city of los angeles. oc counts it as a bad sight for the county. So we slept behind buildings and any thing we could find that would keep us out of the sight of the police.
But yeah tons of families homeless in oc. To me, yeah its sad. There's also families who take advantage of that number and the help. We watched them come in on christmas to the Saint Vincent Depaul winter shelter to take advantage of the gifts. I had asked my friend why there were more than usual. She told me most of them lived around the block and new about this. Their kids keep shut about it.
My perspective is the amount of homeless women that get no help what so ever. My friend and I tried our best to find shelter but we couldnt' cause we didn't have kids and weren't on drugs. It still bothers me to this day because my friend is still stuck there with no way out. I was lucky enough for my family to gather up enough money to bring me to Tennessee. She has no family except her boyfriend, who is homeless too.
Also just a small note, when you see homeless don't tell them to get a job. They might have one and not have enough money or they might be having a hard time cause there are so many stipulations to being homeless and trying to get a job that its very complicated....plus its horrible when you stink and go to an interview and you can't do nothing cause you aren't allowed to bathe that week.
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