Rule No. 13 of the U.S. Golf Association says you must play the ball as it lies.
Fox Cities Housing Coalition Vice President Joe Mauthe used that analogy to describe one of the major findings from a months-long examination of the region's homeless or near-homeless population.
"You can pretend it's in the fairway, you can want it to be on the green," he said, "but you gotta go into the deep rough and get the ball from there."
Service providers must meet these folks where they're at, he said. That means taking into account childhood trauma and the physical or mental health barriers people face ā issues that surfaced regularly in the more than 500 surveys administered to the Fox Cities homeless or near-homeless in April.
The study was the first work of its kind to learn more about the area's nearly homeless individuals, those who are about to be evicted or are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage. Volunteers reached another hidden population: people living "doubled up," or housed with others because of economic reasons and not by choice. The Housing Coalition presented the results at a Wednesday event attended by about 340 people at the Radisson Paper Valley in Appleton.
[For moreof this story, written by Katherine Lymn, go to http://www.postcrescent.com/st...gled-lives/74266774/]
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