Program Highlight: On The Rise

 

On The Rise creates a community where women have the relationships, safety and resources they need to move out of homelessness. On The Rise, based in Cambridge, was founded on the ideal that dependable relationships catalyze healing and transformation. 

On the Rise Core Values

• Inclusion- No one is beyond help.  On The Rise seeks out and welcomes those who have the fewest alternatives.
• Safety- Safety is a prerequisite to meaningful self-determination.
• Self determination- Each woman has the right to privacy, the right to decide if and when to share her story, the right to define her own needs and goals, and the right to decide how to relate to On The Rise and its community.
• Diversity- On The Rise is responsible for creating an environment where people of very different backgrounds feel respected and valued.
• Relationships- An essential outcome of the program is caring, constructive, competent relationships.  On The Rise builds relationships upon a foundation of nonjudgmental engagement, respect, dignity, honesty and accountability.
• Wholeness- Each woman is more than the sum of her "problems" or "diagnoses"; On The Rise expects to go beyond single-issue or short-term interventions to achieve sustainable solutions for whole persons.
• Community- Creating community is a powerful approach to creating change.

Long-term Relational Approach

Trauma, such as experiences of physical and sexual abuse and violence, has damaging effects on individuals and societies. Many women who repeatedly seek help from our social service system for issues such as mental health, addiction, and homelessness have experienced trauma, often since childhood. While every person responds to traumatic events in different ways, survivors of traumatic experiences can feel overwhelmed by feelings of vulnerability, fear, shame, guilt, numbness, and alienation. These feelings can alter her sense of safety and trust and make it difficult to form relationships. Without professional and personal supports to help them recover, survivors of trauma can become isolated in a cycle of pathologies where the only constant relationships she has in her life are with an abusive person, a drug, or the voices in her head. Often these women are at high risk of further victimization because of their vulnerable living situations.

Short-term interventions are unlikely to provide sustainable solutions for survivors of trauma who lack the supportive community and non-judgmental relationships that they need to heal and recover. Within the Safe Haven community at On The Rise, each woman is given time, space, dignity, respect, and choices to develop her own personal agency and to build relationships with staff that are not predicated on pre-determined program outcomes, but on meeting her needs and goals as she expresses them.

Whole Life Context

Many homeless women face complex issues that are both internal and external and may overwhelmingly complicate her attempts to move out of homelessness. Yet, most social services specialize in helping people with one specific issue (such as domestic violence, addiction, mental health). While necessary, this fragmentation in the human service system can lead to conflicting requirements for a woman facing multiple challenges which can make it difficult for her to access services. Participating within a fragmented social service system, a homeless woman may come to see herself as a conglomeration of problems to be solved because her interactions with others are all about how and why (or why not) she addresses these issues.

On The Rise helps women who have fallen through the cracks of our social system navigate the next stage of her life. Based on individual relationships, we support her as she recognizes, accepts, challenges, and balances the realities and opportunities of her internal, societal, and cultural contexts. Our work with women crosses over specific issues and extends out into our community to guide and support her as she accesses services for specific challenges. By being an active partner with women on her journey, On The Rise strives to increase her self-efficacy and improve the effectiveness of our social service system for the most highly marginalized people.

Population

On The Rise serves women who:

• Are homeless by a broad definition of lacking a permanent, safe, secure place to live
• Are in crisis
• Have experienced traumatic physical and/or emotional abuse by people and/or systems
• Are falling through the cracks of our human service system because of the multiple and complex issues they face, and
• Are poor.

Homelessness is about so much more than not having a home.  Women at On The Rise face a complicated web of challenge including traumatic experiences like childhood abuse and domestic violence; health conditions like chronic diseases, physical disabilities, and mental illness; systemic issues  like poverty, inequality, and the lack of affordable housing, education and job training; and the destructive coping methods that lead to alcoholism, drug addiction, and legal issues. 

On The Rise is uniquely effective at working with homeless women who do not fit the requirements of other programs.  For example, a woman might not have a specified period of sobriety, a firm commitment to leave an abusive partner, a treatment plan for her mental illness, or a clean criminal record.  On The Rise meets women where they are.  Our expectations of her, and her expectations of us, grow as our relationship grows.

Off-Site Advocacy

Community Advocates at On The Rise go with women out in the community to help her build connections, navigate services, and support her work on specific issues. Advocates will provide support and/or advocacy to women as she goes to appointments, to the doctor’s, to court, to her new home, or wherever she needs to go as she takes steps towards her goals. Advocates draw on their relationship with each woman and their extensive knowledge of the resources in our community to facilitate her access and success.

Legal and Health Access

T he legal and health systems can be daunting to all of us. To help break down barriers to legal and health services for women participating in On The Rise, a professional legal clinc isprovided weekly within the Safe Haven. We also work closely with Healthcare for the Homeless and health educators in the community to connect women to vital resources.

Support for Women in Housing

W hen the day finally comes for a woman to move into her own apartment, what should become of her relationship to the staff at On The Rise? Our goal is to continue to support each woman who needs us once she has moved into her apartment. The challenges of being poor, or a single mother, or a recovering addict, or managing health and mental illness, do not go away once a woman has the keys to her apartment. In addition, new challenges arise—such as feeling isolated, managing money, living independently, and making connections in her new community.  The social support and early intervention provided by On The Rise has proven critical to helping women maintain their housing.

Keep The Keys offers the following services:

• Housing search support
• Move-in support (including referrals to furniture banks and soliciting donations of household items)
• Communication and advocacy with landlords/property managers
• Home visits
• Personalized goal plans
• Accompaniment and orientation to stores, community centers, public transportation and other resources in the new neighborhood
• “Our Place”, a weekly support and education group
• Emergency funds for utilities or rent when necessary to avoid eviction
• Access to all of the amenities at On The Rise’s house during designated ‘Keep The Keys’ hours

-Adapted from http://www.ontherise.org/, retrieved 9/23/10.

 

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