The Parent

2009 is the Year of The Parent!

As we launch into the deep of community transformation, let us be mindful that a reduction of homelessness, or any other community ill, will require us to gather ourselves together like never before and with focused, sustained and combined effort strengthen the roots of parents and family.

However, around these vital roots are the entanglements of poverty, illiteracy and spiritual deformity. These entanglements have a strangle hold on the stability of the home and are feeding the repetitiveness of incarceration and homelessness like never before in our history.

We can see this stranglehold on the family, as each spring seems to reveal new batches of young people on our streets. The young men are standing idle on our corners and too many of the young women are finding ways to sustain their living through prostitution.

These are our sons and daughters – something must be done, and it must be done quickly.

I have been asked several times; "Why should Cherry Street focus on, or participate in, parent initiatives?"

For us the answer is quite simple – the data Cherry Street has gathered has led us to conclude that the disenfranchisement of parents has lead to the break down of the family which continues to be the primary contributor to homelessness.

For 62 years we have seen the effect of brokenness in the home and the realities of both the brokenness in men and women along with the restoration of them, have taught us valuable lessons and keen insights that life transformation must also be a preventative measure, rather than just a cure.

Parents are the very head waters of our society – what flows from those headwaters and how it flows through the tributaries of our communities determine whether we have a high productive community or a high risk community.

One hundred percent of the men and women arriving at our doors come from somewhere – more than the home, more than the family. Our men and women come from parents.

If there is to be lasting and enduring change within our neighborhoods and communities, our plans must include our utmost and valiant effort to reach the parent.

In it together,

Dan