A House Is Not a Home

Homelessness gets a lot of press throughout the world. Asheville surely gets its share. Today we have yet another committee looking at the problem of homelessness.

This writer is in no way claiming to have answers. I do however, have questions. Is there a difference between being without shelter and being without a home? When is a house not a home? How do you, the reader, answer the question: “Where are you from?”

In 1964 Burt Bacharach
and Hal David wrote A House Is Not a Home, shining light on the
perquisites to making a house a home. Dionne Warwick gave life to this
song when she sang: “A house is not a home, when there’s no one there
to hold you tight, and no one there you can kiss good night.” She
really hit home, (or must I say, hit the house) as she sang, “Turn this
house into a home. When I climb the star and turn the key, oh please be
there, still in love with me.”

Turn the key. You know, back in the day, in this writer’s hometown,
when a kid came home from school, he/she would push open the unlocked
door and instinctively yell, “Mommy, I’m home!” Mom would always yell
back,” all right, baby!” I know this gives you readers goose bumps!
Well, that’s “home stuff,” for sure.

How about when mom is not there? I remember when my mom was away, the
home’s interior became gray, no matter how many lights were turned on.
My home became a house when my mom was not there. The suggestion is
that love is one prerequisite to turning a house into a home. If not
mother’s love, it had to be someone else’s love. Just think: the trip
from shelter to home is a long trip, a trip that many of us will
possibly never take.

While in college, I got a new perspective on the true meaning of the
word home. A colleague from Nigeria said to me: “In this country, when
one is asked where he is from-he answers by telling you where he lives,
or by telling you the town in which he was born.” Whereas, a Nigerian
answers where is home. The definition for home my college mate shared
with me was, in my room, in my father’s house, in my village. Wow! That
definition rang with such a thundering lighting bolt of truth; I nearly
forgot to grieve the loss of my own home. You see, we sold my father’s
house. Three of my children have never visited my home, they never
will. I have lost my home. I lost it for my children and my
grandchildren, and the children to come.

Here’s one. How about a child that splits their time between two or
more houses, from week to week? Where do they leave the back pack?
Where do they find their favorite toy? Who can they kiss good night?
Can they find the bathroom at night without turning on the light? Who
is waiting when they come home after school? Is the door locked? When
is a house a home? What does it take? Who are the homeless? Really,
who?

Poor people in many cities around the world are being asked to leave
their homes. Many governments, are not taking no for an answer.
Beijing, as China prepares for the 2008 Olympics, allegedly, is forcing
some of its unfortunates out of town. It is claimed that Atlanta did
the same thing as it prepared for the 1996 Olympics. Today, in
Zimbabwe, a government sponsored urban clearance campaign is the center
of a heated debate. It is estimated that 300,000 to1.5 million urban
poor are affected. When eminent domain and/or gentrification are around
the corner in your neighborhood, your home becomes a house. From house,
it becomes shelter. And from shelter, it becomes____?____, you fill in
the blank.

It may seem as though I’m making a big fuss about nothing, and I may be
way-way behind the times. That may be true, reader – I merely want you
to put on your thinking cap when you hear someone talking about the
homeless. Are they really talking about the shelter- less, or the
house-less? They can’t be talking homeless. Remember; Love; Mommy; The
turning of the key; the kiss good night, and all the other things that
Make a House a Home. The journey is a trip that many of us will never
take.

And she sings – “A room is still a room, even when there’s nothing
there but gloom; but a room is not a house, and a house is not a home
when the two of us are far apart, and one of us – has a broken heart.”
Home.