By Sara Gates, Anna Arutyunova and Rebecca Gray, Contributing Writers
Families with children have become the fastest growing
population of people experiencing homelessness, leading to a rising demand for
diapers.
Every Tuesday night, a small group gathers outside of the
First Baptist Church, waiting for the doors to open for a weekly hot meal. This
particular line, though, looks a little different than many others in downtown
Portland. As a long-haired man with a wide smile opens the door precisely at
six o’clock, young men pushing strollers and women with toddlers hoisted on
their hips pass through.
This line is made up entirely of families. They come to the
weekly Dinner and a Movie gathering to eat, watch a film on the church’s
projector screen and occasionally pick up donated clothes or personal items.
They come also for something much less recreational and far
more essential: diapers.
Diapers aren’t covered by food stamps, need to be
replenished constantly and have to fit properly to do their job. And with
families now the fastest-growing segment of Portland’s homeless population —
last year’s Point-In-Time Count of Homelessness showed a 35 percent increase in
the number of unsheltered families with children — the need for diapers has
never been more urgent.
“I’ve gotten my son’s diapers here for his entire life,”
Kevin, a 35-year-old single dad, says on a recent Tuesday night over a plate of
spaghetti and meatballs. “This place is like my family now.”
He started attending Dinner and a Movie more than 10 years
ago. At that time, he says he was a homeless youth prone to violence. Today, he
volunteers alongside the organization’s leaders, who eventually helped him into
Narcotics Anonymous, find stable housing and retain custody of his son Alex,
now 3 years old.
Kevin’s face, with its easy smile and bright blue eyes, is
now the first to greet families as they file in on Tuesday nights.
While the youngest guests play together in the nursery,
their parents sit down to a movie — on this night it’s “Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom” — and look through the donation table’s pile of clothes for
their kids’ sizes. The bags of diapers are doled out carefully, with one bag of
20 diapers for each child.
Jen Lawrence, the program’s development director, estimates
the group gave away 800 packages of diapers last year. “It’s a real need,” she
said.
Dinner and a Movie took note in the rise in the number of
homeless families years ago and changed its program to accommodate the new
demographic. The outreach began in 2001 as a way to reach homeless youth,
allowing anyone younger than 25 to come for a meal and a movie. About four or
five years ago, Lawrence, says, many of those street kids started coming with
babies of their own. Lawrence said they looked at what resources were already
available in Portland and decided the families needed them more.
“How can you make a bigger impact than trying to effect the
next generation?” Lawrence asks. “We decided to be the support that many of
these parents need to break the cycles of abuse that might have brought them to
the street in the first place.”
Not only are diapers necessary for children’s basic health
and hygiene, but they are crucial for parents who rely on day care. Most
daycare centers require a full day’s supply of fresh diapers in order for a
baby or toddler to attend. When a family does not have enough diapers, the
parents may not be able to go to work or job interviews.
Like many of Portland’s family-focused services, Dinner and
a Movie looks to another local nonprofit, Northwest Children’s Outreach (NCO),
for the diapers they distribute each week to families like Kevin and Alex. The
large faith-based organization operates seven drop-off centers across the
greater Portland area, including two in Washington state.
Individuals donate children’s items, such as clothing and
toys, and NCO volunteers sort the items and prepare packages for the shelters,
caseworkers and other clients that serve families in need. Last year, they gave
out over half a million diapers.
“Diapers are our single biggest need,” says Debbie Sherwood,
president of NCO. “After we pay our building expenses, which are relatively
small, any monetary donations we receive go to buying diapers.”
Bridges to Housing, a family-focused housing program,
estimates that more than 2,500 families in the Portland-Vancouver area are
without safe, permanent shelter on any given night.
Northwest Children’s Outreach impacts many of those families
by working with more than 200 agencies to distribute diapers, clothing and
toys. Caseworkers and program directors like Lawrence place weekly orders based
on their regular clients’ requests, but sometimes the demand outpaces the supply.
“It’s a basic need, and we definitely cannot fill all of the
orders we receive,” Sherwood says. “Without a reliable supply, we know mothers
have to make tough choices and get creative.”
Sherwood’s caseworkers report that some mothers choose to
diaper their babies only at night, changing wet clothes and cleaning up as best
they can through the day. One mother she knows lines her baby’s diaper with a
paper towel. When the baby wets the diaper, she simply changes the towel,
stretching out her 20-diapers-per-week supply.
One local mother who experienced this frustration firsthand
is hoping to make a difference by founding a new organization, the PDX Diaper
Bank.
“When my husband was in law school, we were on the receiving
end of services,” Rachel Alston says. “We qualified for food stamps and all
kinds of aid, but there was nothing for diapers.”
Still in its planning stages, the group hopes to become a
centralized donation center (similar to Northwest Children’s Outreach) but one
focusing solely on providing diapers to agencies for distribution.
Just last year, mega-brand Huggies partnered with a few
diaper banks around the country (including Westside Baby in Seattle) to found
the National Diaper Bank Network. Alston has applied to become a partner bank
with the network, allowing Portland families to benefit from bulk and corporate
donations on a much larger scale.
“We’ll collect diapers from individual donors and companies
and store them similar to how a food bank operates,” Alston says. “But instead
of distributing diapers directly to families, we’ll work with local nonprofits
that already have an existing client base.”
Alston hopes to include cloth diapers as part of the PDX
Diaper Bank, but only if parents in need request them. While cloth diapers are
reusable and less costly in the long term than disposable diapers, many
families do not have easy access to washers and dryers.
The report was produced as part of a collaboration between
Street Roots and Portland State University.
This article appears in 2012-12-07.