Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/435509
REBELE FAMILY SHELTER AT THE HOMELESS SERVICES CENTER 115 CORAL STREET, SANTA CRUZ • WWW.SCSHELTER.ORG • On-Site Health Services • Case Management & Counseling • Financial Planning & Education • Ongoing Transitional Advocacy • Safe & Secure • Supportive & Dignified S unday isn't usually a day of rest for us Realtors, but since it's the holiday season, let's take a break from our regularly scheduled feature and give traditional real estate the day off for good behavior. Instead of holding another Open House and hyping another swanky beach place, let's hold our hearts open a little wider and engage in some mindful reflection about our ongoing struggle with homeless issues. If anything demonstrates how tenuous the fortunes of home are and how ironic most of our beliefs about homelessness are, it's the incredible up and down and up again ride the real estate market has been on for the last decade. And the thought that over that same period of time places like the Rebele Family Shelter have continued on, steadily working to help homeless families find places of re-entry into the world. Fundraising for the Rebele Family Shelter began in the early 2000s, not long after NASDAQs bubble burst and the bottom dropped out of Silicon Valley. Giving wasn't at the top of everyone's list then, even if the number of homeless families and children was increasing. The Shelter's walls began to rise in 2003-04 even as the median price of real estate in Santa Cruz was heading back up - fueled by low interest rates, leverage, equity lines, and easy qual subprime loans. Suddenly it seemed like everyone could get a home just for the asking. The Shelter opened its doors and got it's programs off the ground in 2005-06, while the real estate market was peaking. In the throes of their irrational exuberance homeowners viewed homes as cash cows and milked them for all they were worth. Ego homes, monster homes and plain old regular houses were getting flipped and re-flipped regularly on reality TV. The work of the Shelter continued on in 2008-09 even after the real estate bubble burst and the national economy teetered on the brink of insolvency. And even as the Great Recession continued its long slow tortuous decline into winter. Somehow real estate had landed on the flip side of all that flipping. And the world was flipping out. Millions of people were caught in the struggle of declining values and shrinking nest eggs. People losing their homes became a national pastime. In Santa Cruz… Everyone knew someone who was underwater. Late on their payments. In default. In foreclosure. In the middle of a short sale. Or at least worried about some or all of the above. Rents rose precipitously as former homeowners swelled the rental ranks. More people were living paycheck to paycheck. One small disaster away from the much bigger disaster of homelessness. But suddenly, as though it were all a bad dream… here we are at the end of 2014. The real estate market is back. Average prices and median prices are close to where they were in 2005. NASDAQ is headed for another crack at it's all time high. And January 29th, 2015 will mark the tenth anniversary of the Rebele Family Shelter. Since 2005, the Rebele Family Shelter has provided more than 700 families with a roof over their heads while they were working hard to overcome the barriers to housing. Through thick and thin, the Shelter has kept its fires stoked, its hearth warm and its porch light on. If we continue to think of homeless people as living outside the norm, in some other dimension apart from everyone else, they become "the others". They become different and less than. HOME LESS THAN the rest of us who have homes. As events have shown, there isn't very much that separates any of us journeying around the great wheel of life. There is almost no degree of separation. Just a few tiny threads and bad choices and and brief moments in time that get pulled and tugged in different directions while the world remains in constant, crazy motion around us. Somebody has to stay in the trenches and keep it simple. With food, warmth, clothing, showers, safety and a place of refuge. That's the work of the Shelter. To maintain balance and hold the center. The real challenge we face lies in understanding and appreciating the essential relationship that should lie between heart and home. In finding better ways to integrate these two things into the daily lives of everyone. Even as the culture all around us is busy becoming more discombobulated and more out of touch and more out of whack with what home really ought to be. That's the extra assignment of home-work we all need to keep doing. Rebele Family Shelter (RFS) RFS provides up to 180 days of emergency shelter to households with children*. RFS is open to mothers and/ or fathers with children* and provides stable shelter to 28 families (up to 90 individuals) per night. During their stay at RFS, families are provided family-centered and housing-focused case management, evidence-based, developmentally appropriate parenting education, trauma-informed counseling, arts enrichment programs, and after school supportive programs. * Since 2000, children have been the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. To Donate go to www.scchelter.org MEDIAN HOME PRICE IN SANTA CRUZ COUNTY $700,000 RENT FOR A THREE BEDROOM HOUSE $2,200 A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD…. PRICELESS