Opinion: We are all one paycheck away from homelessness

Count your blessings … Imagine being the head of household with a partner and two children earning just enough wages to cover some of your basic needs. An unprecedented pandemic happens, employment ends, money depleted, eviction, and an already struggling family is left to continue life. Tough decisions like sleeping in a car, bunking with family and diffidence of enrolling into an emergency homeless shelter become the reality of survival. Now open your eyes. In 2018, 4,172 people classified as homeless in South Carolina faced this dilemma (National Alliance to End Homelessness, n.d.). Disheartening? Yes. We have all experienced or encountered someone who is one paycheck away.

Sumter is a dynamic community in its ability to serve our homeless population with devoted organizations like Sumter United Ministries, YWCA, Wateree Community Actions, By Name Project, Fatherhood Initiative and several others. Providing homeless persons with safe and stable shelter, warm meals, clean clothes and employment access are some of the contributions these organizations devote to a population who cannot return the favor. Noble is an understatement in their individual service. As warm and bright a devotion to serving our homeless, these organizations do not formally work together. Yes, you read it correctly! Many of these organizations work in silo of one another. Unless informal communication is made, organizations are structured to work within their capacity. As a premier county in the state of South Carolina, Sumter must do better. In an era of the "new normal," Sumter's organizations that serve the homeless are in a unique space to reach across their thresholds to create a homelessness coalition where interagency cooperation equates to more efficient communication, widespread integration of services and supreme capacity to serve Sumter's homeless population. Consider our head of household and their family as residents of a "new normal" Sumter. Although struggling financially, spiritually and emotionally, this family is able to walk into the doors of one of Sumter's faith-based partners or community organizations to receive compassionate, high-quality, streamlined service using a multi-disciplinary collaboration. This family now has an opportunity to change its circumstances while Sumter becomes steps closer to decreased homelessness as a result of a team approach. A "new normal" Sumter is ready to assist every Sumter resident in a basic human need, housing.

There are numerous goals to end homelessness adopted by our state's Coalition for the Homeless, but the most fundamental is strength in collaboration (SC Coalition for the Homeless, 2015, p.3). "Homelessness is not a challenge for the government alone to solve" (SC Coalition for the Homeless, 2015, p. 3). Our call to action is developing an alliance among Sumter's faith-based partners and community organizations to mentor and support one another while keeping Sumter's approach to end homelessness consistent across agencies.

"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone." - Ronald Reagan

Demetress Adams-Ludd is a resident of Sumter and Master of Social Work graduate from the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.