Let’s Talk About It

Often when a family faces homelessness, people will ask, “Why don’t they just get a job?”

There are two things wrong with that question:

1. It’s not that easy to just “get a job.” The parent, often a single mother, may be able to find a job in food service or in retail but many of those jobs do not pay a living wage. A grocery store manager in the US typically makes between $37,000 and $86,000 per year – hardly enough to support a family of four especially in Bergen County – and that’s for a management position! A grocery store clerk often makes less than $40,000 a year for full-time work making it almost impossible to make ends meet. Eli Amdur, Career Coach who writes for The Record recently noted, “the average job search now lasts 24.3 weeks.” That’s six months! A family in crisis cannot wait 6 months before bringing in that next paycheck.
2. This statement suggests that the only reason for a family to lose its home is financial. But homelessness is extremely complex and may have multiple contributing factors. The sale of the house a family was renting, a serious illness, lack of reliable childcare, the elimination of a parent’s job, and loss of benefits are only a few. Any of these can cause a family to spiral down into homelessness and most are not in the family’s control. Families need the knowledge, resources, and time – the type of assistance that Family Promise offers – in order to become self-sufficient once again and be able to maintain stable housing.

So the next time you hear someone say that families experiencing homelessness should “just get jobs,” perhaps you can educate them about the obstacles that sometimes prevent families from doing so and how Family Promise can help.