Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 4 Best In-Depth Feature or Feature Package/Category 10 First place Homelessness in Johnson County Ryan Trares, Daily Journal (Franklin) Comments: A comprehensive look at a difficult and often ignored issue ��� homelessness. Good charts with statistics and data to back up the story line. Good work keeping up with the four women and their effort to bring awareness by sleeping in a vehicle. Second place Coping with tragedy Stephanie Price & Rod Rowe, The Goshen News Comments: This well-written story pulls the reader in from the very start. It is timely and deals with both sides of a tragedy, something we don���t often see in accident stories. Third place Families failing local kids Mishele Wright, Derek Beigh & Matt Troutman, Chronicle-Tribune (Marion) Comments: This goes beyond the normal spot-news story about a specific problem and provides information about the problem���s many facets. Well-done. Homelessness in Johnson County Ryan Trares Daily Journal (Franklin) LaTheda Noonan crouched down in her minivan, her temporary home. The middle seats had been removed, leaving just enough space for an inflated air mattress. Blankets, pillows and small overnight bags would be piled up off to the sides. Boxes of food would fill any available space. Noonan and three other women plan to live in the van for the next week. Their goal is to bring attention to the homeless problem in Johnson County in part by mimicking the daily routine of those who have to live out of cars, tents and other people���s homes. They���ll shower at truck stops and eat free meals offered by local churches. Every morning, they���ll wake up and drive to their jobs for a full day���s work. Each night, they���ll find a decently lit parking lot to park in and sleep for the night. Two people will sleep on the mattress. Another will lie on the back seat, while Noonan will recline in the front seat. The women represent Christian Help, a local organization that offers services such as rent assistance and temporary shelter for the homeless and those on the verge of losing their homes. Noonan is executive director of the group. Jennifer Petgen, Deb Wright and Danielle Oehrle volunteer as case managers for families seeking help. They hope to dramatize the impact of homelessness at a time when the problem affects greater numbers of local residents. ���So many of us are right on the ragged edge of being homeless,��� Petgen said. ���As long as everything is running smoothly, we���re fine. We can pay the bills, buy food. But when something unexpected comes up, our world can be turned upside down.��� They recognize that their efforts might be viewed as ���playing��� homeless, and that, at the end of the week, they can return to their homes. But while the situation is artificial, their intention is genuine, Noonan said. She said people need to understand that homelessness affects hundreds, if not thousands, of people throughout Johnson County. The effort will start Sunday and conclude Sept. 4. At 5:45 a.m. each day, the alarm clock will go off in Noonan���s van. The group will travel from wherever they spent the night to the Christian Help office. Petgen and Wright will clean up in the office restroom and head to their day jobs. Oehrle and Noonan will stay at the office. For food, they plan to eat free community meals at Franklin Church of Christ and Under the Sun Caf��. Broccoli cheddar soup and beef stew can be made in slow cookers during the day at Christian Help and eaten later for lunches and dinners. ���Know the other side��� In the evenings, the women will meet up and make themselves available to the public at ���open houses��� around the county. They will answer questions, share their experiences and try to spread as much information as possible about homelessness. ���We want them to see what we look like, hear about what we���ve had to do and be available for anything they might want to know,��� Noonan said. ���Anything to get people talking about the homeless.��� The idea to go a week being homeless came from Noonan. Since taking over as director of Christian Help in January, she had been searching for a way to focus the public���s attention on the people she served. ���I needed to find the best way to shock people into paying attention to this. What better way than to give up our lives for a week,��� she said. Noonan sent out an email to her case workers and volunteers, explaining her idea and asking for volunteers to join her. For Petgen and Oehrle, it was a chance to give the issue of homelessness public exposure. Wright wanted to better understand her clients and felt this was an effective way. ���You see the people downtown Indianapolis, that come up to you and ask you for money. It became a point of wanting to know the other side,��� Wright said. ���Sometimes, you can���t help people unless you know what they go through.��� In planning their experience, group members set rules to parallel being homeless without putting themselves in danger. Each person chipped in $50 for supplies that they���d need during the week, mostly if they need to do laundry, pay for a shower or buy food. They���ll purchase gas with a prepaid card that Wright is providing. When planning their week, the women had to consider aspects of everyday life they take for granted. Their van would need to be parked somewhere with a public restroom at night. They had to scout well-lit lots, ideally with cameras inside that store managers could watch and ensure their safety. ���When you start running through everything and bouncing ideas off of each other, you realize how difficult this will be,��� Oehrle said. ���Your creature comforts will be gone.��� To show the toll that homelessness takes on the body, the women will track their emotional, physical and mental conditions as the week goes on. ���What do we do?��� On Sunday, they���ll take a test of 100 math problems, all at a fifth-grade level or below. They have five minutes to finish as many problems as possible. The women will take a similar test at the end of week to see if their mental acuity held up during the experience. They also will write in journals each night and anticipate their sentences getting shorter and sloppier as the week goes on. Every morning, they will take their own blood pressure and temperature readings, recording them in their journals. They expect their vital signs to worsen as the stress of living out of a van builds, Noonan said. All four women understand that no matter how much they���ve tried to prepare for the week, unexpected setbacks will erode their spirits and make life difficult. In that way, their experience will somewhat mirror what their clients go through every day. ���We���ll be stressed, and we understand that. But it won���t be anything like what our families go through. We know we have an end; they don���t,��� Noonan said. In addition to attracting attention, they hope their experiment serves as a guide for those who might become homeless. Once they���ve gone through it, they can give clients a better idea of what they need to be prepared for. ���We get calls from people all of the time saying, ���We���re going to lose our home. What do we do?��� Now we can tell them that this is what they need to have ready,��� Noonan said. ���What we���re looking at is how to use the resources at our disposal.��� Page 43