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A Home for the Holidays
By Metro Parent Staff

JOIN us in helping a homeless family get off the streets Click Here

The holiday season is replete with tradition. And that’s a good thing
for families. According to Portland resident Jean Staeheli, coauthor
of the classic book Unplug the Christmas Machine (Quill/William
Morrow, 1991), holiday traditions are hugely important for kids. “Kids
are conservative,” explains Staeheli, “they want the same things to
happen each year, the things they’ve always done, the things they
don’t do the rest of the year.”

While gift-giving is certainly the most prominent of the holiday
traditions, it’s far from the only one. Most families and faiths have
incorporated a charitable tradition into their holidays. And these
practices may be the most meaningful of all.

This year Metro Parent would like to start, with the help
of our readers, a charitable tradition. We’d like to make it possible for one local
homeless family to get off the streets and into stable housing through JOIN, a local
nonprofit that works to put the homeless into permanent housing.
Whether you’re religious or not, Christian, Jewish or Muslim, churched
or unchurched, you’ve probably all heard the Christmas story at one
time or another. You’ll recall that part of that story involves Joseph
and Mary traveling a great distance and needing a place to stay and
finding “no room at the inn.” They ended up sleeping in an animal’s
stable, and it’s there that Jesus was born.

So, in a sense, the Christmas story is about a family without a home
(at least temporarily). It seems to us that living on the streets puts you
pretty much at the bottom of the economic stability ladder. And we all
know that children need stability – as evidenced by Staeheli’s quote
above – which homelessness wreaks havoc with.

JOIN serves those for whom there is “no room at the inn” including
many local homeless families. Their “Home for the Holidays” program
provides not only move-in and rental assistance but also stabilization
services that help the family stay off the streets. After a full year,
more than 75 percent of the families JOIN places are still living in
their new homes.

The cost to help one family get into a home through JOIN’s “Home
for the Holidays” program is $2,500. Metro Parent will match every
contribution made by our readers up to $1,250, resulting in a total of
$2,500, enough to provide stable housing for one homeless family.
Will you help us?

We totally understand if you have other favorite charities that you
give to at this time of year or if the economic downturn has hit you
hard and you’re cutting back. But if you need an idea for a great way
to make a difference, we hope you’ll consider being part of this effort.
Go to www.Metro-Parent.com and click on the “Give a Family
a ‘Home for the Holidays’” button. Or go directly to the JOIN Web
site – www.joinpdx.com – and click on “Metro Parent Home for the
Holidays” on their home page.

Together we can make a difference.