Groups unite for plan to take on homelessness
By Amy Lavalley Post-Tribune correspondent January 30, 2012 10:48PM
Father Kevin McCarthy of St. Teresa of Avila asks the panel how people can become involved in the 10 year plan to end homelessness in Porter County during the presentation Monday evening at Ivy Tech in Valparaiso. | Jeffrey D. Nicholls~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 1, 2012 9:53AM
VALPARAISO — Anyone can become homeless, even a next-door neighbor.
Jennifer Dillin was that neighbor. Born and raised in Valparaiso, she moved to Phoenix after high school to live with her dad. She eventually married and started a family.
The savings and loan crisis devastated her husband’s career and her marriage, which spiraled into a life of abuse and isolation. She and her two young children escaped their home in the middle of the night, and police took them to a shelter.
“There was no greater feeling in the world than going to safety, but now I was homeless,” she told more than 200 people Monday in the auditorium of Ivy Tech’s Valparaiso campus. The crowd came to hear about “No Place Like Home,” a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Porter County.
The plan, compiled by Chicago-based Social IMPACT Research Center, was the outgrowth of discussion between the churches, social service agencies and other organizations that are part of the Porter County Coalition for Affordable Housing, said Barb Young, president of the Porter County Community Foundation.
“In essence, we couldn’t fix the problem until we could quantify it,” she said.
The plan provides demographics and statistics on the county’s homeless population, as well as information on housing costs, job availability and other barriers to permanent housing.
Last January, 154 adults and 75 children in the county were homeless; nearly 1 in 5 of them had been homeless for longer than three months.
Strategies suggested by the report for ending homelessness include increased access to affordable housing; social service outreach to prevent homelessness; and increased economic security, among other measures.
“Ending homelessness is not something a social service agency can do or a church can do or a stakeholder can do,” said Amy Rynell, director of the research center. “It really needs to be a collaborative effort.”
Dillin returned to Valparaiso and assistance from the Caring Place, a shelter for victims of domestic violence, and other local agencies helped her get back on her feet.
“Homelessness can happen to anybody at any time. We as a community need to stay away from being prejudicial and jaded,” said Bruce Lindner, executive director of Porter County Aging and Community Services. Solving homelessness is “not something that’s going to happen over night.”
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