Hardly Easy

A hard ROC topic was given to the ROC Stars this week to think about and answer:

- Over time, what parts of this work become or are seemingly easier?

- Over time, what parts of this work become or are seemingly harder?

The following is the response of ROC Star Kacy West, of the CHATT Foundation:

“What about this work gets easier over time?

This work is so different from any work I had ever done before. I came into this with a mindset of schedules, plans, checklists, color-coding, and so on. That kind of rigidity worked well in an office setting, but flexibility is a skill I had to learn. We always start with a plan, but we go into it knowing that we’re probably going to have to shift. Over time, my whole mindset has shifted away from rigidity and perfectionism.

The knowledge and confidence that I am good at this and that I do know what I am doing have solidified with time. That makes outreach a lot easier. Nothing surprises me on the street. I can answer any question anybody has about homelessness. The only people we learn about homelessness from now are the people experiencing it.

Most of all, my emotional capacity has grown. That doesn’t make this job easy, but it would be impossible to continue without growth. I do not hesitate to love people even though I know it will hurt later. I can cope with death. I find goodness and beauty everywhere. I hold people, physically, in my arms so they can fall apart in safety for a little bit.

I thought having a big, soft heart would make this work harder, but I was wrong. It just makes it very important to take care of myself.

What about this work gets harder over time?

The anger is the worst for me.

Every piece of me wants to scream at the injustice. On our streets, in our city, there are people freezing to death, overdosing, being attacked, being raped and beaten, being trafficked, being arrested for having nowhere to go, being displaced in the rain, the dark, the snow…just suffering.

Every layer of government, from this city to Congress, continues to allow homelessness.

Every day that goes by without a 24-hour low-barrier shelter in this city is heartbreaking. Every meeting that houses people has to talk about “what should we do with homeless people?” It is heartbreaking”.

The following is the response of ROC Star Joe Brackett, of the Homeless Healthcare Center:

It’s harder to know come up with new things to say when options for resources don’t exist or are fewer. It's easier to stand in the sheer silence of you knowing you have to do all you can to help this individual survive, and the individual knowing they have to do the same for themselves.

It's harder to know your interaction with someone might be your last. It's easier to make sure that each interaction is full of intention and is meaningful.

It's harder to see the environment shredded to pieces because people whose lives are in pieces are struggling to survive in the midst of it. It's easier to piece together efforts and partnerships that could shift public perceptions surrounding homelessness to maybe stop further destruction in the future.

Harder to trust others for their on-the-surface and seemingly good-intentioned efforts. It's easier to let your instincts guide you and take you deeper into understanding who is truly working for the benefit and behalf of the client and who is truly working for the benefit and behalf of self-fulfillment.

It's harder to find enough time in the day to make as much progress as you are desiring, too. It's easier to decipher which things, conversations, tasks, meetings, speaking engagements, and potential partnerships are worth your limited time.

Harder to motivate others to remain consistent, compassionate, or connected. It's easier to realize that motivation is a fleeting thing and to instead remain self-disciplined, knowing that long-term discipline leads to more long-term success over the short-term success found in the sporadicness of motivation.

Harder to hear the stories of loss, sorrow, and trauma. It is easier to share with others that homelessness is more complex than may be commonly perceived.

It's harder to know where the assistance for those experiencing homelessness on the larger scales is going. It's easier to commit to not going anywhere and continuing to do the work of making sure the scales of assistance here locally are continuing to rock and roll!

#ROCAndRoll

#HardlyEasy