Weathering together

Posted on June 1st, 2022

Simpson’s Participant Voice Committee strengthens bonds and voices with fun

On a brisk February day, Simpson Family Advocate Shae Roberts gathered her courage together and lowered herself onto a sled. She’d promised herself she’d go down the hill at least once, and that’s exactly what she was going to do.

All around her, other people were getting ready to take the plunge. Moms. Daughters. Uncles. Guardians. Toddlers who were more snowsuit than kid at a certain point, but nonetheless happy to waddle around in their warm winter gear. They were participants in Simpson’s Family and Youth Housing Program, and they were there to take part in the Participant Voice Committee’s big sledding outing on Presidents’ Day. There was no school, and the snow was firm and slick – a perfect day for sledding. Later there would be a fire for roasting up s’mores and hot chocolate in the park’s warming house.

The Family and Youth Housing Program is for families transitioning out of homelessness. With rent assistance, connections to resources, and partnerships with advocates like Shae, participants can build up the strength and knowhow they need in order to leave the shelter system for good. An outing like this can provide an important reprieve from a challenging period in their lives – a time to just relax, have fun, and be a family like any other.

“It’s pretty cool,” Shae says, catching her breath. She explains that some of the other folks who were nervous sitting at the top of the sledding hill had honestly never been sledding before. They were facing their fears in order to try something new.

“Voice is the tool by which we make
ourselves known.” — Shae Roberts, Family Advocate

While tending the fire, Andrea Wakely of the Three Rivers Park District helps some of the younger adventurers get the most out of their marshmallow toasting experience. She’s there with all the supplies a family sledding outing could possibly need, from gloves to sleds and saucers.

“We decided to bring programs to the community rather than always having folks come to the parks,” she says. Without adequate transportation or gear, it can be hard for families to enjoy some of the wintery pleasures many people think of as essential to growing up in Minnesota. And now more than ever, she says, finding ways to get outside is crucial.

“Winter is hard,” she explains. It’s important for people to find ways to be together. And with COVID-19 variants still floating around in the ether, these days, togetherness is often much easier to find outdoors. She’s hopeful this will be the first of many partnerships with Simpson.

The Participant Voice Committee began as part of Simpson’s efforts to become a more responsive and anti-racist organization. The vast majority of shelter guests and program participants are BIPOC, and all of them have been homeless: two groups that have been historically silenced or treated with undue skepticism and/or condescension. The committee’s mission is to give shelter guests and program participants a platform to be heard, share their stories and struggles, and to tell Simpson staff what they actually need out of their programs.

“We learn from each other.” — Shae Roberts, Family Advocate

As the staff leader of the Participant Voice Committee, Shae’s been working with families to organize outings like this one. She’s had personal experience inside the social services system, from foster care to a home for teen moms, so she recognizes the frustration some participants can feel with being unheard or overlooked. She also runs wellness and financial literacy classes, committed to being the kind of advocate she wishes she’d had sooner when she was growing up.

But fun days out are actually an important plank in the committee’s platform, too.

“It’s a way to connect and build community,” Shae explains. There are a lot of experiences that homelessness can rob people of. Not just the joy of going downhill on a really fast sled or learning how to toast the perfect marshmallow. It can rob people of having neighbors… and the strong, trusting relationships that can form between them.

“A lot of families don’t have a support system,” Shae says. “Participants… they want community, especially after COVID.” Creating space for participating families to spend time with one another, to learn and play together, can help build that support system. Together, they can be stronger. Louder. Heard.

“It helps, you know?” she says.

Support the creation of community

Simpson’s mission is to house, support, and advocate for people experiencing homelessness. The Participant Voice Committee is one of the ways Simpson is working to better serve our neighbors according to our values:

  • We believe that everybody has the right to safe and affordable housing.
  • We celebrate and embrace the uniqueness and dignity of every person.
  • We encourage people to draw upon their strengths and promote the power of self-advocacy.
  • We advocate against the injustices of society that cause homelessness and poverty.
  • We strive to create a collaborative community with the individuals we serve, within Simpson, and with the greater community.

With your gifts, you support not only the immediate physical needs of guests and participants – like emergency shelter or rent assistance – but advocates like Shae, and the programs that bring people closer together and allow them to forge stronger communities.

We thank you for your support, and we urge you to invest in the community we all love. Together, we can all grow stronger – but it starts when we make the decision to care for one another.