speaking of alternatives, mrs. crust volunteers at a homeless charity and recently told me something that kid of blew my mind
first some background... this charity is pretty fucking awesome. they've been doing their program for about 30 years now. they focus on homeless single moms. they provide mom and kids with an apartment in a secure facility with food, childcare, medical care, psych care, and finally life skills and job training. its like a 4 year program. first 6 months are nothing but therapy for mom and kids. then they slowly start phasing in life skills and job training. at some point mom gets a job, then moves out, and enters the final phase of her program as a coach/cheerleader for the new moms.
they have like a 60% success rate. that's pretty amazing to me given that "success" is defined as "single independent working mom" and i really just don't know how single working moms manage their lot in life. don't think i could do it.
now for the mind blowing part
this charity struggles to fill their vacancies - not because there is a shortage of single homeless moms but because the single homeless moms would rather stay homeless than commit to the work and sobriety required by the program.