Help for the homeless

“Home” has a new meaning for Kristy Petersen and her family.

For three months, home was a series of motel rooms, a collection of Rubbermaid totes that contained the essentials.

Now, Petersen and two of her three children, Jasen Petersen, 10, and Raquelle Proffitt, 15, are settling into a roomy, three-bedroom apartment near downtown Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s a big change from one room with a bed, a microwave and a bathroom,” said Raquelle, looking around her new living room. “It’s nice to just sit down and have an actual dinner with everyone.”

The Petersens’ story is not unusual, at least not these days. Homeless advocates and service providers in North Idaho report seeing more homeless people each week. More of them are families with children.

In a survey conducted Jan. 29 through Feb. 4, organizers identified 431 homeless people in Kootenai County, not including those living in a shelter or in transitional housing. Of those, more than half identified themselves as being in a family; 19 percent were children. In a similar 2007 survey, organizers identified 380 homeless people living in the five Panhandle counties.

Last year, the Coeur d’Alene School District identified nearly 240 students as homeless. Patty McGruder, the homeless outreach coordinator for Dirne Health Clinic in Coeur d’Alene, guesses that number is higher.

“I have two new families a day that I work with that are not part of that number,” she said. “I am seeing a lot more families.”

McGruder and others who work with the homeless say the mix of circumstances is broad. There are families that fall under the stereotypical picture of “homeless” – they’re dealing with mental illness, disability or addiction. But more and more don’t fit those categories.

“We had one family that had one medical bill and one car accident too many,” said Cindy Wood, director of Family Promise.

Bob Driscoll, a navigation services specialist with the Idaho state Department of Health and Welfare, said he sees more families who have not traditionally been a part of the system.

“These are parents who are professionals or economically well-to-do, and their lives have dramatically fallen apart and they’re looking for some assistance,” he said.

The definition of homeless extends well beyond those living in cardboard boxes down by the tracks. They’re people living in homeless shelters as well as their cars, even in winter, advocates said. Even those living with relatives and friends can be considered homeless.

“Yes, they have a roof over their years, but it’s not permanent, and it can be taken away from them at any time,” said James Curb, homeless liaison with the Coeur d’Alene School District. “When it’s taken away, they don’t know what to do.”

For Petersen, it was a matter of her past catching up with her. When she was married, she and her husband owned a business and lived in a nice, six-bedroom house. Divorce brought all that crashing down. She eventually sold the house and got a smaller place for her and son Jasen; Raquelle and older daughter Felicia, 18, lived with their dad. This fall, when Raquelle decided to move in with her full time, Petersen’s place was too small.

So Petersen, 38, gave up that home, never thinking it would be so difficult to rent another one. But, with bad credit stemming from the divorce, and a felony conviction for drug possession stemming from a meth addiction – she’s been clean for a couple years, she said – landlords kept turning her down.

She has rheumatoid arthritis and is on disability, and thus has a dependable income. But that wasn’t enough to land her a place.

So she and Jasen and Raquelle packed their essentials into plastic crates and moved into a motel. Then another. Then another. Soon, Petersen said, she was spending $800 to $1,000 a month to rent a motel room. That easily would rent an apartment in Coeur d’Alene, if only she could come up with the deposit, first and last month’s rent, and find a landlord willing to take a chance.

Finally, she met McGruder, who went to work for her. Petersen is among the first families helped by Dirne’s new “Pay it Forward” initiative. Two formerly homeless men helped Petersen secure the deposit for her apartment. Now, it’s Petersen’s turn to help by gathering household items for another family’s new home.

“This was a godsend,” Petersen said. “A lot of us didn’t know that (programs) like this existed.”

Turns out there’s quite a bit of help for homeless families among an informal network of service providers who talk regularly, share information and refer clients back and forth.

“The beauty is in the subtleties,” Curb said. “We’re looking for a long-term plan. Everybody helps a little bit. And more and more it’s not money that’s going to fix the problem. These people need a good friend, a good mentor and a good opportunity to prove themselves.”

St. Vincent de Paul of North Idaho is the largest homeless-serving agency in North Idaho, with 24 programs aimed at helping low-income and homeless people. St. Vincent operates a men’s and women’s shelter, as well as 244 units of housing for low-income seniors and those transitioning out of shelters. Dirne Health Clinic offers medical, mental health and dental services, and employs McGruder to do outreach among the homeless population. As such, McGruder finds families that need help and points them in the right direction.

Then there’s Idaho Health and Welfare. Community Action Agency. Kootenai County Assistance, and many churches that can provide food or even temporary work.

Family Promise is newer church-based initiative, in which qualified families can spend up to three months living in churches while getting back on track. It is the only family shelter in North Idaho.

“No one should be going hungry because in this community there is a meal served every day of the week,” Driscoll said. “No one’s going to starve, but shelter is a different problem.”

In Coeur d’Alene schools, teachers and counselors are trained to spot kids living in crisis. When teachers see children coming to class unwashed or unfed, without having spent adequate time on homework, or they stop coming to school regularly, that can be sign that something’s wrong at home, Curb said. The district can help with clothing, school supplies, and in some instances, rental assistance.

“There’s help and hope out there, we’re just not blaming parents for the situation they’re in,” Curb said. “The neat thing about our partnership with Health and Welfare, with St. Vincent, is that we’re all on the same page where we’re trying to provide a sustainable service, a sustained long-term plan for these families. We’re not looking to give them a check and get them off our doorstop. We’re working in unison so that we know for months and years that these families will be able to sustain wherever it is they’re living.”

It’s part of the district’s mission. “As a school district our goal is to eliminate those barriers to every child achieving their academic potential and also lifelong potential,” he said.

It’s tough enough living homeless or in crisis, McGruder said. Add children to the mix, and the challenges soar.

Most shelters, for example, require clients to leave during the day and look for work. If you’re a single mother, that means you take your kids with you when you apply for jobs or benefits.

“Even just going to Health and Welfare to pick up information and to get the food stamps and to find out about shelter, it’s not an easy process,” she said. “It’s at best four hours and with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, if you’re in the office long enough, you’ll see how many come in and wait and wait and then their kids go overboard and then they’re out the door before they get any services.”

Child care, she added, is one of the missing pieces in terms of services for homeless families, as well as transportation to far-flung service providers. Beyond that, however, advocates do what they can to ensure kids get the help they might need to weather the chaos in their lives.

“If there’s anything these kids and these families need is some semblance of normalcy that doesn’t single them out. These kids are feeling singled out,” said Jeff Conroy, executive director St.Vincent de Paul of North Idaho. “The bus stops outside our transitional housing. Everyone knows they’re there. They just want to be normal, and by living in a 300-square-foot cinderblock apartment with a bunk bed in it, is not normal.”

So for children living in St. Vincent’s transitional housing program, the agency provides homework clubs. A couple local churches invite kids over for meals and fishing trips. Conroy added he’s toyed with starting a Boy Scout troop.

Family Promise, a national organization that opened in North Idaho last April, operates a day center in Post Falls where clients can hang out during the day while they’re looking for jobs online, doing laundry or getting cleaned up. There’s a TV, games, craft supplies, books and other things to keep children busy. Wood said several of the 15 area congregations who are open to hosting families often will leave special treats for the kids, such as coloring books and fun decorations.

“When the kids go to the churches, they know they’re going to be loved and welcomed,” Wood said.

Raquelle Profitt knows how hard it can be to live a transient lifestyle. While brother Jasen often found kids his own age living in the motels – kids whose parents were in the same situation as his mom – Raquelle said she tried to hide it. But soon, it started to affect school. On the days the family changed motels, she skipped school to help move. Eventually, her absences resulted in her being dropped from choir at Coeur d’Alene High School.

She appealed to the teacher, who suggested she share her story with the class and let them decide if she should be readmitted.

“Everybody was shocked,” Raquelle said. “They thought I’d been ditching school. … I stayed in the class.”