In This Article
Dear Friends,
The Hard Work of Finding A Home.
There is something I want our community to understand about homelessness right now: getting into shelter is only the beginning of the journey. Families are working incredibly hard to find their way back to stable housing, but the road out of homelessness is getting harder.
At Freedom House, we are seeing families who need more time and more support before they are ready to leave shelter. The cost of almost everything has risen—housing, food, transportation, childcare, utilities—and families are trying to build stability while carrying the weight of those rising costs. For a parent already living paycheck to paycheck, finding an apartment is only one part of the challenge. They also need enough income to afford the rent, transportation to get to work, childcare so they can work, food for their children, and the ability to respond when something unexpected happens.
We are seeing a steep increase in mental health concerns among the families we serve. For some families, homelessness is not simply a housing problem. It is connected to trauma, mental health challenges, relationship difficulties, employment barriers and years of instability.
There has also been a notable increase in families experiencing chronic homelessness—families who have faced homelessness repeatedly or for longer periods of time and need more intensive support to become and remain stable.
Some of the families arriving at Freedom House look different than they did years ago. We are seeing grandparents raising grandchildren, often trying to provide a safe and loving home for children while living on a fixed Social Security income. They are doing everything they can, but the math can be incredibly difficult.
Recently, I was visiting with a grandmother staying at Freedom House with her two grandchildren. Their mother is elsewhere, getting the help she needs, and this grandmother is doing her best to care for the children in the meantime. As we talked, she shared that she was considering combining households with another mom she had met here at Freedom House. Both women live on fixed incomes and understand that trying to maintain an independent household on Social Security will be incredibly difficult in today’s housing market.
But something beautiful has happened during their time at Freedom House—they have become friends.
In the uncertainty of homelessness, they have found a deep friendship that has become a source of safety and encouragement. Now they are imagining what stability might look like if they faced the challenges together. Neither woman has an easy road ahead. But together, they see possibilities that might not exist if they were trying to do it alone.
Their story reminds me that sometimes stability begins with something as simple—and as powerful—as knowing that you don’t have to face the hard things alone.
The children are part of this story, too.
When a family comes into shelter, the children are experiencing homelessness right alongside their parents. They need safety. They need routine. They need friendships. They need opportunities to simply be kids.
That is why we are making plans to create a new space at Freedom House specifically for children—a place where they can play, connect, learn and feel a sense of normalcy while their parents work through the difficult process of rebuilding their lives.
We have also welcomed a new staff member who is focused on caring for the children after school. This gives children a social outlet and a safe place to spend time, while giving parents an opportunity to focus on employment, appointments, housing searches and the many other responsibilities involved in moving their families forward.
I think sometimes we imagine that once a family has a place to stay, the hardest part is over. But for many families, shelter is where the hard work truly begins.
Parents are working to increase their income. They are searching for housing in a market where affordable options are scarce. They are finding transportation. They are arranging childcare. They are managing appointments and paperwork. They are caring for their children. They are working through trauma and mental health challenges. And they are doing all of this while trying to make ends meet in an increasingly expensive world.
Our role is not to do the work for families. It is to walk alongside them, remove barriers where we can, connect them with resources and give them the time and support they need to build something that will last.
That takes patience, perseverance, and a community willing to walk alongside families for as long as the journey requires.
At Freedom House, we believe homelessness is a chapter in a family’s story—not the whole story.
Sometimes that chapter is longer than expected. Sometimes the path forward has setbacks, or maybe a family needs more support than anticipated. But we continue to believe in what is possible when families are surrounded by people who refuse to give up on them.
God is good, and we see His goodness in the people who continue to show up for families—our staff, volunteers, donors, partners and supporters.
Thank you for being part of that community. Together, we are doing more than providing a place to sleep. We are helping families build roots strong enough to grow beyond homelessness.
Blessings to you,
Jennifer Schmohe
Executive Director
Freedom House Ministries
