Mamahood

I’ve worked with homelessness and homeless people in Cleveland for almost two years. I was pregnant or BC (before child) during this time. Looking back, now that I have a baby, I can’t fathom how mothers made through homelessness with children.

If my family were to become homeless today in Cleveland…

- My boyfriend and I would have to split up. He would go to 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter and I would go with my son to the Community Women’s Shelter. There’s only one shelter in Cuyahoga County that accepts families intact–and they have a lengthy waiting list. All other shelters separate families.

- My son and I would be stuck at a shelter infested with bed bugs, sharing equal space with drug addicts, mentally-disabled folk, women who are forced to prostitute, and sober people who are determined to find a job. It’s a mixed bag and we’d be thrown right into that mix. Sure, the shelter may house us in the “amily wing” but this wouldn’t do much for our situation.

- I would have to fight to keep my son. The County doesn’t look too highly on homeless women with babies. They’d rather place that baby in foster care.

We would be in good company. Families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. I can’t imagine how hard it must be. I mostly worked with single adults but every once in awhile I’d run into kids at the women’s shelter. Or hear about a family that was picked up on the street and forced apart.

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On another note, I want to run away from this election. It’s sickening how Republicans can lie so much. Right now there’s a commercial pandering to people’s emotions with a baby ga-ga-ing in the background. I think these evangelicals cared more about my son as a fetus than they do as a birthed baby. But that’s another post…

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