Last week I talked about the homeless in terms of housing and having a place to stay.  However, one of the saddest things about being homeless has little to do with having a place to sleep.  Home means so much more than shelter.  Robert Frost, in “The Death of the Hired Man,” said that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”  The poem is about a man who is similar to many people who find themselves homeless.  Warren and Mary are not relatives, but they have to take him in.   Silas is “…just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.”   There are many definitions of home, but this poem seems to illustrate the concept more than any other explanation I’ve heard.   Silas was a day laborer who worked for Warren during the off seasons, but during the busy season, he would be lured off with higher pay.  Somehow he knew that Warren and Mary would always take him back when times got bad.  He went to them, rather than to his successful brother down the road.

 Many  of us have had a place where we felt safe, sheltered, and loved at some time in our lives.  Often it is attached to a small, but comfortable space somewhere in the past.  My own childhood home was in a small rural area of Southeastern Kentucky.   We (my mother, father, sister and I) moved there when I was about three or four years old. At that time it was a four-room frame house.  It  faced a dirt road out in the country, mostly surrounded by woods.  My sister and I had no fear of the woods around our house, so we built playhouses with fallen limbs for walls, green moss  for covering furniture, and wild flowers for decorations.  Occasionally something might scare us, like the time our older city cousin visited and told us there were wild hogs out there and ran back toward the house, causing us to run frantically after her.  But most of the time it never occurred to us to worry about any harm because we were close to a safe place called home.  Our safety was assured by our mom and dad, as was our well-being in all ways.  We had few material things in those days, but we were loved and that was most important.  It still is.  The house, although it was remodeled and increased in size when I was a teenager, continued to be a modest house with a few more conveniences throughout much of my adulthood.  After my parents died, my sister and I kept it for about ten years, renting it out to a nice couple.  Eventually we decided that we needed to sell it after we realized that neither of us would ever go back there to live.  Although I’m a bit sad when I pass by it, I am fortunate that my current home also provides that same feeling of love and safety that my childhood home did. 

The truth is that if people become homeless, they almost certainly have no place that feels like a home, so they are missing much more than just a place to sleep at night.  Relatives and friends have all given up on them, and just as poor Silas had, they often have “nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.” 

One of the things the Davies Shelters have tried to do for the men and women who are guests there is to help them develop some sense of home and family by encouraging them to help one another and work together to provide a well-kept house, find employment, and eventually make other living arrangements.  This is a way to help them fill the void in their lives when they arrive.  Providing food and shelter is important but it does not necessarily give a person a feeling of home.  This is done through shared work, laughter, tears, and mutual stories of accomplishment.  On many occasions when I’ve visited the shelter,  I’ve heard stories of guests who have helped one another through difficult circumstances, defended one another, and  returned to the shelter after leaving to volunteer their time to help other guests.  If homeless people are to recover their sense of home, they need more than just food and a place to sleep.