At home

The youth I work with are house-less, but does that mean they are necessarily homeless?

I thought a bit about the concept of home today.  Western culture often defines home as a specific place, but for me home is more of a relational thing.  It is more about the people around me that make me feel at home.  People that have known me for a long time and I can be completely comfortable with.  Although I have never felt completely at home in the world.  Maybe because I've never felt at home with myself.  But still, the concept of home for me is more of a relational thing than a physical place.  For some people there is an experience they had where they felt completely at home.  It may not have been a place where they spent much time at all, but something about it was significant or life changing and just feels like home in many ways.  There are many, many definitions of home.  I feel most at home when I am with certain people.  It doesn't matter where I am, if they are there I feel more at home.  But again, I can't say that I have EVER felt entirely at home.

You never know what makes a person feel at home.  A place that you go to everyday may be a home for someone.  An experience you have could be a place where someone feels completely at home.  Something entirely meaningless to you could have a bunch of meaning for someone else.  If we think about the places and experiences in our lives as someones home maybe we would live our lives a little differently.

For some of the youth I serve, Teen Feed is a home.  No, it is not a house or a shelter.  But it is comfortable and safe and a place where many feel at home.  I try to look at it that way.  It is easy to just gloss over the sites and not really think about it.  But I am trying to consciously think about Teen Feed as these youth's home.

One of my new co-workers said that his ultimate goal was not to get these youth in housing, but to make them feel at home with themselves.  To have them be content and happy with who they are no matter where they may be.  That is more important.