We Can’t Want It More Than You Do

By Tabitha Keith, Director of Programs, Heart for Winter Haven

Last fall, a woman came to Heart for Winter Haven because she was behind on rent.

The month before, she had withdrawn roughly $40,000 from her retirement account. Within about a month, the money was gone. Much of it had been spent on food delivery and online dating sites. Now she was facing a housing crisis and asking us for help.

We didn’t pay her rent.

That might be an uncomfortable sentence to read from an organization whose job is to help families in crisis. It was uncomfortable for us, too.

Her need was real. The possibility of losing her housing was real. But we also had to consider whether paying the rent would actually help move her toward stability, or whether it would simply solve the immediate problem without addressing what had contributed to it.

And that’s where helping gets complicated, because solving the immediate problem and helping someone move toward stability are not always the same thing.

Need and readiness are not the same thing.

People arrive at financial crisis in all kinds of ways. Sometimes the circumstances are largely outside their control. Sometimes their own decisions have played a significant role. Often, if we're willing to look closely enough, the story is complicated enough that neither explanation works particularly well on its own.

I think we do people a disservice when we need their story to fit neatly into one category or the other.

If we explain every crisis as the result of someone's bad decisions, we ignore very real barriers and can become judgmental toward people whose lives we don't fully understand.

But if we explain every crisis as something that simply happened to someone, we can unintentionally strip them of something incredibly important: their agency.

There is a difference between judgment and accountability.

Judgment looks at someone's decisions and decides what they deserve.

Accountability recognizes that someone's decisions matter because they have agency. They are capable of making choices, learning, changing direction, building new habits, and participating in what happens next.

To me, that's part of treating someone with dignity.

At Heart for Winter Haven, we can help remove barriers. We can connect someone to housing or employment opportunities. We can teach financial principles, help build savings, advocate with a landlord, connect someone to counseling, walk alongside a family, and sometimes provide financial assistance when a crisis threatens their stability.

But there is a line we eventually reach.

We cannot make someone create the budget. We cannot make someone show up for the job. We cannot make someone save the money or follow through on the plan. And we cannot want stability for someone more than they are willing to participate in creating it.

That doesn't mean we stop caring when someone isn't making the choices we hoped they would make. It doesn't mean we decide they aren't worthy of help. And it certainly doesn't mean every person experiencing poverty simply needs to make better choices.

It means we take people seriously enough to believe their choices matter.

I think that's an important distinction because helping can become surprisingly complicated when compassion and accountability feel like they're pulling in opposite directions.

But maybe they aren't. Maybe accountability is one expression of compassion.

Jesus was extraordinarily compassionate toward people, but His compassion didn't require pretending their choices didn't matter. He could extend grace while still calling someone toward something different. He could see a person's dignity without ignoring what needed to change.

That's a challenging model for those of us who want to help people.

If I believe you are capable, I shouldn't have to pretend you are powerless. If I believe your life has value, then your decisions have value too. And if I believe you can build something different, my role isn't to build it for you. It's to make sure you aren't building alone.

That changes the question from “How do we fix this for someone?” to “What does this person need in order to move forward, and what part of that movement belongs to them?”

Those are harder questions than simply deciding whether to write a check. But I think they're better ones.

Because the goal was never just to get someone through today's crisis. The goal is lasting stability.

And lasting stability requires more than resources. It requires opportunity, support, healthy relationships, access, skills, and systems that don't unnecessarily stand in someone's way.

It also requires participation.

We can walk with people. We can advocate for them. We can invest in them. We can believe in them when they're struggling to believe in themselves.

But there is one thing we cannot do: We can't want it more than they do.

One step to take this week

The next time someone you care about is struggling, resist immediately asking, “How can I fix this?”

Try asking instead: “How can I support you in what you're willing to do next?”

Sometimes the most dignifying kind of help isn't taking responsibility away from someone.

It's reminding them that they still have some.