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.

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