The sheriff comes to evict you tomorrow. You, your spouse and the kids have nowhere to go. As you fight off the panic, a number floats up through your fears. You call 211 and suddenly you’re connect to someone who can help you.
You, your spouse and children now form part of the new face of homelessness. Your whole family – not just a sinngle alcoholic or drug addict living on the street, not one mentally ill person, but your whole family – is homeless. You need more than a place to stay the night. You need meals, help finding jobs, help around the stigma of eviction so you can get into a new place to live. And the kids need to stay in school. The Roanoke Valley Interfaith Hospitality Network has a way to help out. As volunteer Drema Yates of Temple Emanuel explains, “Most of the families are so optimistic, wonderful families. They just had a hard bit of luck.”
Now under the leadership of executive director Marie Muddiman, the network celebrates its 15th anniversary this month. Churches and synagogues all over the Roanoke area have formed into groups of two or three to provide the facilities. Then volunteers do the work, moving cots around and making meals – and anything else that might be needed.
A guest visit starts when an intake person verifies a family needs help and will benefit by it. A family enters into a 60 day program in which they all continue yo live together while they work on their problems. Each faith center has cots so all the members of a family can stay together in one room for a week at a time. The centers provide dinner and breakfast plus bag lunches for the day time.
Then a van takes the guests – and they are guests and treated as such – to a Salem location where the adults work on finding new homes or health referrals or jobs while the children go to school. After a successful two months, a family often gets a volunteer mentor family to help them through the decisions they face while getting established back on their own again.
As Muddiman explains, “this is where a family is paired with a family out of the program. They see if they’re paying bills, have food for the week or if not, how to get more. We don’t give them money but we help them for a year to stay on their feet.” Mentoring is “optional if guests want to participate. And we always need more mentors.”
The Network keeps careful records and posts a 70% success rate, with families back in housing where they can maintain themselves. Additionally 70% of the able-bodied adults have jobs, as well.
How the Network does this feat requires the coordination of many volunteers. For example, St. John’s Episcopal Church and Temple Emanuel work together, as do Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Church and Oak Grove Church of the Brethren. All told eleven faith groups supply the volunteers, with Muddiman, 50, overseeing everything.
Some volunteers get to know their jobs very well. Gates DeHart, 69, a member of St. John’s Episcopal, has worked as a volunteer for the entire fifteen years that the program has been operating. He now chairs the group’s board of directors. He is famous for providing candlelight, real utensils – not plastic – and flowers on the table for the family dinners he makes. “Families love it,” Muddiman says.
Yates, 49, recruits members of Temple Emanuel to spend the night with families. They help get kids ready for bed, talk with the families: in other words, act as hosts. “About 4 times a year I have spent the night with families. I am single, with no children, but some of my overnight hosts do bring their children with them so they can teach their own children about the need to help others.”
Her partner, Martha Hughes, works as the meal coordinator. “I make sure that guests get whatever they need. I find people to cook the meals. Whoever cooks the meals stays and eats with the guests, and waits until the night host arrives.”
To further celebrate the Network’s 15th anniversary they’re throwing a party Sunday, September 9, at 1:15, at Raleigh Court Presbyterian church, 1837 Grandin Road, Roanoke. Any volunteers or donors are welcome to come share the joy and a lunch catered by Mac & Bobs. Claas Ehlers from the national umbrella organization will speak. However, you must let them know you’re coming by calling 540-444-7374 by Tuesday, September 4.
These churches and synagogues do a lot of unheralded work because of their religious convictions. But is that the only reason? “I am extremely grateful to be able to do this,” Yates adds. “All of us are close to that situation at times. When I come home after spending the night I’m very grateful for what I have.”
– Priscilla Richardson, MA, JD