“There are two kinds of parenting…you can be a giraffe parent or a jackal parent.” Chronic homelessness affects men and women of all ages, including single parents of young children. The Living Independent, Functioning Everyday (LIFE) Project in Downey, CA helps parents as they seek housing, work through addiction and mental illness, and develop parenting skills.

The Living Independent, Functioning Everyday (LIFE) Project of the Southern California Alcohol and Drug Program serves single mothers and fathers with co-occurring disorders who have been chronically homeless. LIFE is funded through a Services In Supportive Housing (SSH) grant, from SAMHSA’s Center for Mental Health Services.

To watch testimonials and read stories about mothers who are facing homelessness in California, check out “Voices of Hope”.

“Working for Liz Stoltz is like taking a warm bath, and I always feel good when I get out of a warm bath.” This is the first thing that Elle Whitney of the Living Independent, Functioning Everyday (LIFE) Project tells me this morning when we talk on the phone.

The LIFE Project, a program through The Southern California Alcohol and Drug Program, is funded by a grant from the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). The LIFE Project staff work with 34 single mothers and one single father with co-occurring disorders who have been chronically homeless. Today, every family participating in this program has a home and the loving support of service providers who are conduits of hope.

The program offers home-based counseling, 24-hour accessibility to counselors and a focus on mental health issues, addiction, and parenting. Peer support groups help to facilitate recovery and quarterly events bring this community together. “Our goal, says Liz Stoltz, Director of the LIFE Project, is to help participants become responsible parents and we are all in support of the children.”

“There are two kinds of parenting”, explains Elle Whitney, one of the LIFE Project’s counselors. “You can either be a giraffe parent or a jackal parent. The giraffe is the only animal with a 25-pound heart. We teach giraffe parenting, helping women to parent from the heart, to ask their children how they are doing and to recognize that they need love and safety.” Elle is a mother with 9 years sobriety and a history that includes co-occurring disorders. She believes it makes all the difference that she is in recovery while working with women who are struggling with mental illness, and addiction.  

“I love my job. How great is that? It just never occurs to me to think that things aren’t going to be ok,” says Elle. While she does work with women who are not ready to do the work it takes to heal, she holds onto success stories. “Seeing the results is so fabulous. But for some people, they have all the tools in front of them and they just don’t want to build the house. They want me to build the house for them - but then it’s my house, not theirs.”  

“Our job is to be moms to these girls. Just the other day I sat down on the floor with one of the women in our program and taught her how to sing “itsy bitsy spider” and how to kiss boo-boos. She’s got two years sober and I just keep telling her how beautiful she is and that she’s going be so amazing.  She just told me that for the first time in her life that she feels hopeful. This from a woman who had a schizophrenic break and was walking down the highway backwards into traffic, thinking that everyone else was an alien and out to get her. This from a woman who was institutionalized and is now working, taking care of her children and has a home.”

Claudia Otis, a program counselor and case manager who works alongside Elle Whitney, is another example of success and a role model for women in the program. When I ask her what drives her to do this work, she explains that it’s about giving back. “I was addicted to meth for 24 years and now I’ve been clean and sober for seven. It’s really close to my heart. If it wasn’t for Section 8 housing, I would still be homeless. This is my way of giving back. I try to tell my story.”

For everyone who is a part of the LIFE Project, this work is life-affirming. Some have seen hope through to recovery. Others are just starting the journey, looking to one another for wisdom and inspiration. We all need to hear others’ stories to know we can keep going. Faith is not a feeling. It is action.

Stay tuned in late 2009 for an HRC Special Issue on Homelessness and Parenting, to be published by the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry!