Mt.
Airy miracle workers by
LEN LEAR “Faith
is the bird that sings while it’s still dark.”----Helen
Keller **************** When
the Back Home Catering firm recently catered a fine china event
for the Pennsylvania Ballet board members; or when they catered
an event for the First United Methodist Church of Germantown;
or when they catered a bar mitzvah for the Mishkan Shalom congregation
in Roxborough, a disinterested onlooker would never have guessed
that the skilled professionals preparing and serving the food
were themselves in the not-too-distant past homeless people. “The
point is not just to take homeless people off the street and
give them a hot meal,” explained Darragh Muldoon, 64,
a long-time resident of Mt. Airy and three-year volunteer for
Project H.O.M.E. (Housing, Opportunities, Medical Care, Education).
“The point is to help them become self-sufficient and
break the cycle of poverty, which has certainly happened with
the catering operation.” Anyone
who has lived in Philadelphia for at least 10 years and spends
any time in center city must have noticed that the number of
people living on the street is nowhere near as high as it was
in the mid-1990s. Homeless experts, in fact, estimate that as
recently as 1997 there were more than 800 city residents living
on the street. This past summer that number was between 200
and 300, and only one police citation was issued for improper
sidewalk behavior. And
today many of those former street people, as well as hundreds
more who were living indoors but only because of the kindness
of others, now have permanent residences and are holding down
jobs. And almost all of that progress has been made because
of the efforts of Project H.O.M.E., a non-profit organization
whose mission is to help people break out of poverty and homelessness
and to address the structural causes of poverty. In
1989 two area women, Sister Mary Scullion and Joan Dawson McConnon,
co-founded Project H.O.M.E. They began by conducting street
outreach and starting an emergency winter shelter for men in
a locker room of a recreation center. Anyone
familiar with Scullion and McConnon will tell you that compassion
has always been their lodestar. Their efforts were ignited by
an incandescent zeal that started with the fluttering of wings
and wound up moving mountains. Any spoon is sweet that dishes
out gravy, and Project H.O.M.E. and its allies and hundreds
of volunteers and contributors are now dishing out an unimaginable
amount of gravy. “Our
programs helped 24,000 people last year, and that number is
up by 10 percent this year,” stated Jennifer Norman, 39,
a native of Indiana who has lived in Mt. Airy for 10 years.
A former director of Pennsylvania Hospital’s geriatric
department, Jennifer is now director of residential services
for Project H.O.M.E. “Sister
Mary has so much energy that it is infectious. (She even ran
the New York Marathon this year.) When she went into North Philly
and said she wanted to open a half-way house, some people questioned
her sincerity since she could just leave the community at the
end of the work day and go home. As a result, she moved into
North Philly and has lived there ever since.” If
a police officer or concerned citizen informs them about a person
living on the street, Project H.O.M.E. will send someone out
to offer food and transportation to a shelter. They will also
offer drug and alcohol counseling when it’s appropriate,
family counseling, job training and anything else the individual
may need. Eventually, they may even be able to provide a permanent
residence in one of their own housing units. Project
H.O.M.E. operates 274 units of supportive housing for single
adults at 11 different sites in center city, West Philadelphia
and North Philadelphia. They are also developing “Kate’s
Place,” an 11-story building at 1929 Sansom St. in the
tony Rittenhouse Square neighborhood that will offer 144 safe
and affordable efficiency apartments for low-income women. “This
city has a very serious affordable housing crisis,” said
Sister Mary. “The number of people requiring housing assistance
has grown, but the availability of affordable housing units
has shrunk. That is why we are developing these housing units
as well as increasing educational and employment opportunities.” To
this end, Project H.O.M.E. Is also developing the Honickman
Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs, a 38,000 square
foot, state-of-the-art learning center on the 1900 block of
Judson Street in North Central Philadelphia. Academic enrichment
classes will be offered to community residents of all ages,
with a focus on literacy and computer/technology skills that
will prepare students for meaningful jobs. “The
need out here for these services is unbelievable,” said
Norman. “It is a lot easier to look away from the homeless
people you see on the street. It’s a lot harder to make
contact with them, but at Project H.O.M.E. you learn to do that
and to embrace their humanity.” “I
can’t tell you how much this work has taught me,”
added Muldoon. “When people find out I’m a volunteer
here, they invariably say, ‘Oh, you’re so good to
do this kind of thing,’ but the truth is that it is so
rewarding for me. I truly believe I get even more out of it
than the people we are working with.” Project
H.O.M.E. Is also developing 100 home ownership units in the
St. Elizabeth’s/Diamond Street neighborhood. Project H.O.M.E.
has a mortgage counselor who works with prospective first-time
home buyers. So far they have developed and sold 19 formerly
abandoned (and now very livable) houses to low-income families. Project
H.O.M.E. Also operates three businesses out of their headquarters
at 1515 Fairmount Ave. — Back Home Cafe, Back Home Catering
(they prepare complete Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, for
example, for $175 for 10 people) and Our Daily Threads Thrift
Shop. They offer three after-school teen programs as well as
GED, computer and basic literacy classes and one-on-one volunteer
tutoring. They even provide on-site health services at Project
H.O.M.E. community centers, and they have a “Scholars
Program” that subsidizes the tuition of students from
low-income areas. For
information about volunteering or any other aspect of Project
H.O.M.E., call 215-232-7272 or visit www.projecthome.org |
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