Hunger, health, or housing — which would you choose?
Recently we’ve had quite a few calls from single parents with children whose homelessness was entirely preventable. They were employed, renting a unit they could afford, and doing everything they could to give their children a happy life. Then either the parent or the child fell ill. Bills started piling up, and before they knew it, they were falling behind on rent.
They made sacrifices. Parents skipped meals so their kids could eat. But when you’re forced to choose between food and shelter, something has to give. If you had to choose between paying rent or buying your child’s necessary medication—what would you choose?
Many of these parents had health insurance through their jobs. But if they had to stay home with a sick child, they often lost that job and, with it, their insurance. Then the bills snowball. Suddenly they can’t afford food, housing, or medication.
And in some of the most heartbreaking cases we've seen, families go through all of this only to lose their loved one in the end. They are left grieving, unemployed, and burdened with funeral expenses on top of it all.
The reality is this: even when folks are fully employed, the systems are not set up for them to succeed. One road bump (something they cannot predict or prevent) can send an entire family into crisis. Most of the families we are serving right now are employed and living paycheck to paycheck. But when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, it only takes missing one check for your whole life to turn upside down.
And here’s the part that most people miss: so often, the families calling us for help are the helpers in our community. They are the ones we are always told to “look for” in times of crisis—the neighbors who coach our kids’ teams, the teachers who spend their own money to make classrooms fun and welcoming, the medical assistants caring for our loved ones, the service workers who keep everything running. But what happens when the helpers need help?
Homelessness right now in Massachusetts is affecting anyone who doesn’t have more than a couple of months’ rent in savings. It’s affecting your grown children who, without your help, couldn’t afford rent on their own. Sometimes the only difference between a family who becomes homeless and a family who doesn’t is whether a relative can step in. But housing stability should not depend on whether your family is healthy, or whether your parents can help with rent.
I wish everyone could meet the families we serve. It would open eyes and make it impossible to ignore the problem. But instead, homelessness is too often criminalized, treated as if it were a personal failing instead of something people are experiencing. Families are afraid to speak up. They are afraid to be exposed as “homeless” in the very towns where they live and work.
That’s why we need your help.
On Sunday, October 18th at Lynch Park, we will gather for our Walk to End Homelessness. When you join us—or make a donation—you are walking for the helpers. You are saying that everyone deserves stability, dignity, and hope.
Together, we can make sure no parent has to face these impossible choices alone.
