IHS offers practical help, and much hope

Especially at this time of year, home and hearth provide much comfort and joy. Not everyone is thus blessed, of course, but there are "angels" in Hawaii’s community who work to fill the needs of home. Three of them — Genie Brown, Jerri Chong and Connie Mitchell — share what they do, and why.

Going home for the holidays or inviting friends into our home is what so many of us look forward to during the holiday season. But for hundreds of people on Oahu, home has been lost for a long while, or recently left behind. Either way, there’s no place to call home. No place to feel safe, to find comfort or to celebrate life’s ups and downs … No place to feel loved and cared for … or is there?

For the past 33 years, The Institute for Human Services, better known simply as "IHS," has been reaching out with practical help and hope, to those who have been devastated by homelessness. Our founder Father Claude Du Teil invited homeless people who were hungry for food and a listening ear to come and "talk story" and be filled with peanut butter sandwiches and soup. Back then, if people were willing to make changes in their own behaviors, it usually meant they could start a new chapter in their lives with a new job and a decent and affordable place to live.

Today’s economic reality is not quite so friendly to the job seeker, and even less so to someone who has experienced a period of homelessness. Even more discouraging is that affordable housing for the average working adult is practically out of reach unless one works more than 40 hours a week, or two or more share resources to establish a household.

In the face of these obstacles, people are still clinging to dreams and IHS continues to offer hope and encouragement through the stability of a temporary "home" until they can get back on their feet.

» Danny is a young man who chose to leave a household marked by constant fights with his stepdad. Just out of high school with little work experience, Danny got the individual guidance and support he needed from staff at IHS and found a peer group in other young men who were in similar situations. Using IHS as home base, Danny was able to overcome homelessness, a serious setback when he was hit by a car and with his lack of work experience.

Today, he is training to be an assistant manager at a local restaurant, moving him another step closer to his dream of one day owning his own diner.

» Karla came to the IHS shelter after serving time because she was involved with a drug-dealing boyfriend. She also lost her son when she was incarcerated. Today, she has a job and is preparing to leave the shelter for transitional housing and being reunited with her son. Through the stability and support she received at IHS, she escaped a life of violence.

» Frank is a 58-year-old veteran who was chronically homeless in five states before he spent the last four years on the streets of Honolulu. IHS Outreach specialists convinced him to stop drinking for a day and enter detox to begin his journey of recovery from alcoholism. He was connected to the Veterans Homeless Program, which provided a voucher for housing. Frank is finally home after 25 years homeless.

» In the last four months, we served nine pregnant women, five of whom have given birth after establishing residence at our shelter. Had they not found their way to IHS, they would be living with newborns in their cars or a makeshift home, exposed to the cold winter rains that have been whipping the island of Oahu recently.

No home for the holidays? IHS invites you to come in and enjoy hot showers, meals and safe slumber — and begin life anew.

Connie Mitchell is executive director of The Institute for Human Services.