Stepping Stones provides hope

It could be the boy on the basketball team with straight A’s, the shy girl in the back of the class, the junior who goes to every football game or the senior who doesn’t know a field goal from an interception. Young, outgoing, smart, boy or girl — homelessness can affect everyone, including youth.

Warren Wade, assistant director of Stepping Stones, Inc., a program that helps homeless youth find work and housing, said a recent Indiana Department of Education survey of public school students revealed that more than 9,000 children and youth statewide are homeless.

Of these, more than 200 were from Monroe County.

Christina, 19, is from Bloomington and first became homeless when she was 17.
When her father and his wife divorced, Christina and her father were left with a big house they could no longer afford.

“My father wasn’t employed at the time,” Christina said.

Christina found work while still going to high school, and they continued to live in the house for a few days.

“We depended on our neighbors for food and stuff,” Christina said. “Finally I couldn’t do that anymore, so I stayed with a friend from school and stored things with her.”

Once her father got a job, Christina stayed with her friend while her father lived out of his truck. Christina said she worried about him when winter set in, but there was nothing she could do.

Christina was forced to become what workers at Stepping Stones, Inc. call a “couch-surfer.”

Sheri Benham, the founder and executive director of Stepping Stones, said many students will stay on their friends’ couches or move from place to place with no steady home.

“It’s a small organization, but there are a lot of kids who couch-surf,” Benham said. “We get a couple calls a week.”

It was Benham’s own experience with foster children that inspired her to found the organization six years ago.

“The thing that really got to me was finding the disproportionate amount of homeless who were once foster children,” Benham said.

Stepping Stones is a program, not a shelter, that helps homeless youth get back on their feet, Benham said. People between the ages of 16 and 20 can apply to take part in the program, and the application process can take anywhere from two to four weeks.

Benham said many referrals to the program come from counselors, probation officers, high schools administrators and youth shelter volunteers.

“Anybody that works with youth knows about us,” Benham said.

Once in the program, participants are given a place to live with one or two roommates. They learn to share responsibilities such as chores and cooking. They are expected to hold a job so they can pay a portion of the rent as well as utilities, Benham said.

Participants in the program must finish high school to be eligible, and they are encouraged, though not required, to go to college, Benham said.

While the participants work and finish school, coaches and mentors from Stepping Stones will help participants understand budgeting and living independently, Benham said.

“The goal is for them to be capable of living on their own,” Benham said.
Christina, who has been in the program for a little more than two years, is now ready to do that.

On Dec. 27, Christina will move into her own apartment, supporting herself.
As for her father, Christina was proud to say that as of four months ago, he is a homeowner again.

Christina finished high school and currently works for the City of Bloomington and the Bloomington Herald-Times.

In the spring, she plans to start at Ivy Tech Community College and complete a general studies degree.

Christina plans to stay in Bloomington for a couple years, but then she wants to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard.

“The potential is there,” Christina said. “I can see myself doing a lot of different things.”