MUNCIE, Ind. – The Shepherd's Heart and Hands has helped many unhoused people with clean-ups, providing basic necessities and helping them get back on their feet. Additionally they are also given leftover food from Ball State University for meals as well.
Joseph Romero, the head and founder of this non-profit, has worked with many unhoused people and families throughout the years, especially if they are squatters or living in an encampment. Romero’s organization makes no money off of their work as well and are often reached out to by unhoused people to know where to go for help.
“Every week, I have to put this food list together for all the people who get houses. So we actually have the names to address the phone numbers and how many are in the family when we are feeding the community.” Romero said.
When asked if the City of Muncie had enough resources, in Romero’s opinion, he said that there are many agencies and non-profits doing the work, but it still leaves the question of how do we get the unhoused out of being unhoused.
“We want to get them out of the woods and back into society. And that means we have to connect all the help that is available, the non-profits, the infrastructure. Because if you just put them in a house and leave them, that's not going to work. They’re going to mess up. You need accountability, you need counseling, you need a lot of stuff to work together,” Romero explained.
Due to many unhoused people having an unclean record, Romero says that they are denied the chance to many programs and shelters due to it.
“We need second-chance housing. So that's why we’re promoting Dignity Homes. Let’s give people with a felony a chance if they're willing to work. And I have a lot of homeless people with one or two jobs, with incomes of 14,000 or more, and they can’t get a place.” Romero said.
Romero went on to talk about how whenever he goes out to church to preach that many people come up to him for help and guidance when they are evicted or enter a crisis that can or does render them unhoused.
“I’m getting two to three calls a day of people saying, I don’t know where to stay and that they are going to be evicted,” Romero said. “We know that homelessness is on the rise, and with the lack of housing and all that is a concern of mine. Where are we going to put these people when all these shelters say we’re full, when, I mean, they really do get full.”
Romero then shares saying that one of his fears is these people staying outside when winter hits, and since there are no 24-hour warming centers that they are going to freeze. He then introduces an idea, saying that he wants to start working on adding a heated shelter for those unhoused so they can be protected from it.
Romero then adds that he and his organization know what is coming and that when encampments begin to be cleared out that many will end up being arrested and put in the jail system and will have to start from the bottom again.
“We don’t want to compete with others, but we’re doing something different,” Romero said. “We are the boots on the ground, willing to go to the camps, willing to bring the blanket steps to them. We do it every year all year.”
Contact Landon Jones with comments at Landon.jones@bsu.edu.
