Richard Amos
Case manager, St. Stephen’s Shelter and Housing Services :: April 2004
Few roles in our community are as deserving of recognition and respect as that of
advocate for the homeless. The 20,000 people in our state without a place to live are
perhaps the single group most in need of our love and support. Without that most basic
of necessities--a place to sleep, to get warm, to retreat to and in which to rest and
rejuvenate--our homeless fellow citizens can be overwhelmed in life's most basic tasks.
Finding and holding a job, caring for children, and even maintaining physical health and
emotional resilience become extremely difficult.
The homeless have little money, no power, only slight visibility. It would be easy to ignore and forget them. You have not forgotten. As a case worker and case manager for St. Stephen's Shelter and Housing Services for over ten years you have helped hundreds of individuals and families find housing and hope each year. You have recognized that a place to sleep is only the start of a road to health and productivity, and you have helped your clients establish new, stable lifestyles centered around work or school and family relationships. And you have not forgotten that twice-burdened group of our fellow citizens-- homeless ex-offenders, especially men just leaving prison and in dire need of a fresh start away from their old acquaintances and temptations.
Perhaps you have remembered and fought for these brothers and sisters so long and so well because you have walked in their shoes; you have been there. You have chosen to make no secret of your past, but to use it as a tool to make yourself more effective and as a gift of credibility and inspiration to your clients.
Yours is precisely the kind of open-hearted, loving spirit the Sullivan Ballou Fund seeks to recognize and affirm. You and your colleagues at St. Stephens are models for us in the larger community; you teach us what is possible when people act from the heart. Thank you for your example.
Congratulations!
Elissa and Bruce Peterson, Founding Members