Homelessness Hits Home

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The high temperatures and

humidity braved by participants in Wednesday’s Summer Homeless Awareness Walk demonstrated what the homeless do daily to find food and shelter.

They walk — whether it’s hot, cold, rainy or snowy.

“Homelessness doesn’t take a vacation,” said James Beach, homeless outreach coordinator for Help Hotline Crisis Center, a sponsor of the walk.

Beach pushed a grocery cart filled with shoes in infant to adult sizes to illustrate the age range of the homeless. Officials estimated 1,400 people went homeless in Youngstown and Mahoning County in 2009, including nearly 400 children.

Members of the Cresciamanno family of Canfield were among the 25 to 30 people who trekked the 11⁄4-mile route, starting at about 12:30 p.m. at the Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and ending at the Help Hotline Community Center at 1344 Fifth Ave.

The Cresciamanno children — Nick, 14, Peter, 12, and Clare, 9 — and Clare’s friend, Alyssa Householder, 9, also of Canfield, walked with the Cresciamanno’s mother, Mary Cohan, who works with homeless children and youth through Project Hope at the Choffin Career and Technical Center.

“The worst thing about being homeless is probably the feeling of insecurity, of not having a place to call home,” Nick said.

“I had a friend at camp who was homeless. He was nice. I just thought of him as my friend,” Peter added.

Another walker was Monica Craven of Habitat for Humanity of Mahoning County, who pushed Bailey, her 8-month-old daughter, along the walk route in a buggy.

In working with Habitat for Humanity, Craven said she has

seen firsthand the stress that can come from being at-risk of becoming homeless.

“I just want to help out,” she said.

Help Hotline operates PATH (Project for Assisting Transition from Homelessness), which has outreach workers, some of them formerly homeless, who talk to homeless people and try to get them into housing and hooked up with agencies that can help them, said Duane Piccirilli, Help Hotline’s executive director.

The Mahoning County Homeless Continuum of Care also was a sponsor of the walk.

People who are homeless or at risk of being homeless, or people who know of people in those situations, can get help by calling Help Hotline at 211 or at 330-747-2696.