Empowering destitute people towards transforming communities

4.2Principles in meeting the needs of the destitute

It would seem that most destitute people are initially focused only on “survival needs”, the immediate basic needs of “food, shelter and clothing”.
However, as these basic needs are met, whether in a shelter or other kinds of programmes, a kind of stability returns. With this renewed stability comes a greater sense of security, almost a “the crisis is over for now” feeling, which subsequently leads to people starting to yearn to have other needs met (some may view these other needs as higher needs).
From the above research into the theory of human motivation and needs, a number of principles for doing missions with the destitute as this applies to their needs can be derived:

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  Ask them: Needs differ hugely from person to person, time to time, and situation to situation. Therefore, we should rather ask the destitute what their needs are, and continue asking while we journey with them, than to assume we know their needs according to a model.
  
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  Bonding and relatedness: This is the only need common to all theories. Therefore, it can safely be assumed that the destitute experience the same needs. This makes the issue of reconnecting to a community more important.
  
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  Not hierarchical, but rather preferential. There is not enough evidence that needs function strictly hierarchically. Rather, we must state that some needs take precedence over others at specific times. For instance, a man who has not eaten would hardly be interested in other needs until he has eaten. On the other hand, people sometimes pursue “higher needs” even if lower needs have not yet been met, signifying that individual factors play a large role in personal motivation.
  
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  All people, when asked, seem to want to grow in one way or another. However, people are often frustrated in their attempts to grow, because of a variety of factors, as is often the case with the destitute. Continued frustration of growth over a period of time seems to lead to fatalistic despondency. In the case of the destitute, motivation must then be rekindled. We must literally help the destitute to start seeing something of the SHALOM God intends for people.
  
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  Needs are complex: We cannot compartmentalize needs simplistically in a model and leave it there. Human needs vary too much according to individual factors, situations and timeframes. Therefore we must keep in mind that we should engage the destitute in a way that addresses their complex needs.
  
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  Transcendent needs: It would seem that most people want to be part of something bigger than themselves, something that transcends them. In doing missions with the destitute, it appears that for most destitute people, hope in a God that is greater than my needs or situation is very important. In this way they exhibit a need to hold on to someone that transcends their own limited abilities and power, their situation and problems.
  
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  Gaining an understanding of a destitute person’s needs does not mean that we do missions with them from the basis of meeting their needs. Rather, understanding their needs must take us one step further, where we utilize “strength approaches” to empower them to meet their own needs. Part of this is to help them connect to God as the “ultimate empowering agent” in our lives.
  

5The destitute are people with strengths and assets

When talking about an asset/ strength based approach, some feel that assets do not have much relevance to people who are hungry, homeless, dealing with deep poverty, or in crisis. However, this is not an either/or issue; but rather one of realizing that meeting basic needs, responding to people in crisis and asset building can and should happen together.

5.1Why use a “strength based” approach?

Saleebey (1997:88-89) vehemently declares that focusing and building on client strengths is an imperative of the values that govern our involvement with people (in this case the destitute): including equality, respect for the dignity of the individual, inclusiveness and diversity, and the search for maximum autonomy within maximum community. He warns that “…many models and institutions of helping have become pillars of a kind of inequality… They have evolved into means of domination through identity stripping, culture killing, status degradation, base rhetoric, and/or sequestering. We dominate, sometimes benignly with a velvet glove…”
As Ashley (2000:2) puts it: “I believe the asset philosophy compels us to think about approaching all of our human interactions with a strengths perspective rather than with a deficit- seeking lens – from mentoring to outreach and counseling.”
Sumerlin (in Sumerlin & Bundrick, 1997:1309) agrees and challenges researchers “to identify abilities of homeless persons”. He states that researchers have concentrated on disease among homeless people, overlooking their assets.”
While it is relatively easy to determine the needs of destitute people, it may seem much more difficult to determine their strengths. Yet, if we really want to empower the destitute, we must focus on the latter.
Saleebey (1997:23-24) argues a convincing case for strength based approaches:

The strengths perspective is a dramatic departure from conventional social work practice. Practicing from a strengths orientation means this – everything you do will be predicated, in some way, on helping to discover and embellish, explore and exploit people’s strengths and resources in the service of assisting them to achieve their goals, realize their dreams, and shed the irons of their own inhibitions and misgivings….To really practice from a strengths perspective demands a different way of seeing people, their environments, and their current situation.”

For Van Wormer (1998:1) at the heart of the strengths perspective is a faith that individuals, however downtrodden or debilitated, can discover strengths in themselves that they never knew existed. The strengths or empowerment approach is a crucial part of effective helping and is increasingly articulated in the social work literature (Mullaly, 1993). No matter how little or how much may be expressed at one time, as Weick, Rapp, Sullivan, and Kisthardt (1989:362-363) explain, people often have a potential that is not commonly realized. A belief in human potential is tied to the notion that people possess untapped, undetermined reservoirs of mental, physical, emotional, social and spiritual abilities which can be mobilized in times of need. This is where missions with the destitute come into play: in tapping into the possibilities, tapping into not what is but what can be.
Ann Weick and Ronna Chamberlain (in Van Wormer, 1998:5) propose that “…although some problems are too critical to be ignored, they need to be consigned to a position secondary to the person’s strengths once a crisis has passed”. They further explain that “the strengths perspective is anchored in the belief that a problem does not constitute all of a person’s life. Whether the name of a problem is schizophrenia, addiction, child abuse, troubled family relations or chronic poverty, a person is always more than his or her problem…Focusing on problems usually creates more problems”.
Wikipedia lists a number of very valid reasons for using strengths based approaches that apply when doing missions with the destitute:

1. 
   It is an empowering alternative to traditional ways of helping which focused on needs and problems that had to be addressed.
   
2. 
   It avoids the use of stigmatizing language or terminology which clients use on themselves and eventually identify with, accept, and feel helpless to change.
   
3. 
   It is at odds with the "victim identity", epitomized in popular culture by the appearance of individuals on television or talk radio sharing intimate details of their problems, which is inherently self-defeating.
   
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   It fosters hope within clients by focusing on what is or has been historically successful for the client, thereby exposing preceding successes as the groundwork for realistic expectations.
   
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   It inventories (often for the first time in the client's experience) the positive building blocks that already exist in the client's environment and which can serve as the foundation for growth and change.
   
6. 
   It reduces the power and authority barrier between client and therapist by promoting the client to the level of expert in regards to what has worked, what does not work, and what might work in their situation.
   
7. 
   It reduces the power and authority barriers between people.
   
8. 
   People are more invested in any process where they feel they are an integral part.
   
9. 
   And lastly – it works.
   

This has very real implications for the way we do missions with the destitute. Therapists (and other helpers which engage the destitute) are often comfortable and confident in their role as expert. Effective strengths-based practice requires that we acknowledge that in the life of our clients we are not yet significant, and that it is not our strength that ultimately makes the difference. However, we can use our guidance to locate and integrate those who are significant into the helping process. And we can play a part in empowering others.