When you ask little kids at this time of the year if they're looking forward to Christmas, you probably will see their small faces light up as they nod and look directly at you with expecting eyes.
When you ask the same question of a little girl that is homeless, she's likely to attempt a smile and lower her head slightly to avoid eye contact. That's what happened to one of the volunteers at Tuesday's Project Homeless Connect, which was Nashville's first event of this magnitude.
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"It broke my heart," the volunteer who told me about it said as he recalled the little girl's reaction. "She doesn't even know where she'll be on Christmas."
The little girl was one of more than 1,000 homeless individuals and families who showed up at the Municipal Auditorium Tuesday at Nashville's inaugural Project Homeless Connect, where they received services from 50 participating provider agencies, which all were available to them for one day under one roof.
Homelessness is an evocative term, with a lot of stigma attached to it. It is easy to see the homeless man standing drunk in a corner of downtown asking for money and forget about the little girl who doesn't know where she will sleep on Christmas night.
Project has stepped up recruitment
However, a recent research project by political science professor Tom Knecht and sociology professor Lisa Martinez, both from the University of Denver, showed that volunteering can change attitudes. The two researchers surveyed volunteers before and after their participation in Denver's Project Homeless Connect about their feelings and attitudes toward homeless people.
The results clearly showed that after Project Homeless Connect, volunteers were less likely to say that homelessness was a personal choice or the result of substance abuse or mental illness. Stereotypes had clearly eroded after volunteering for the homeless. Of course, there is a Catch-22 involved: People who subscribe to such stereotypes are less likely to volunteer.
But Project Homeless Connect is more than just a one-stop shop. The event, which is meanwhile regularly held by 200 cities in the United States, Canada and Australia, will change how business is done when it comes to helping the homeless. Other cities, such as San Francisco, which launched Project Homeless Connect under Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004, have been able to recruit hundreds of volunteers.
The results have been so phenomenal that cities nationwide now hold the event on an annual basis, many of them even twice a year. The Metro Homelessness Commission, which organized Nashville's Project Homeless Connect, intends to repeat the event in about six months. The need, as was shown on Tuesday where nearly 250 volunteers pitched in to assist 1,078 homeless individuals, is definitely here.
Project Homeless Connect has been shown to lower barriers and remove obstacles by bringing together agencies and community volunteers across the city. During one day, every service provider is focused on solving problems that so far have kept the poorest of the poor living in the streets.
This united focus provides more than services to the homeless. It offers hope, a commodity many of these poor people have lost along the way.
What is more, Project Homeless Connect gives people in the community a chance to make a difference — in one day.
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