In 2021, Leighann Plummer bought a new car for the first time. She called this happy, proud moment the direct result of a decision she made to apply for a spot in a program for people experiencing homelessness.
The nonprofit that runs the program, Saranam, gave her a furnished apartment, a refrigerator full of food, and even helped her finish her associate degree.
But most importantly, she said, it gave her a positive relationship with her son, Ozzy.
“It was ours together. It was like a fresh start. You know, it was our place. Mom got better,” she said. “He continued to say that for two years, you know, ‘mom got better.’”
Plummer has a substance use disorder and had gotten into trouble with the law, burned bridges with friends and family, and lost her home before getting into rehab in 2017. Then she and her son snagged a spot in Saranam after someone dropped out.
She said the fact that she was able to stay sober between rehab and entering Saranam, and how she got her spot, made it feel like destiny.
“It was just like I almost manifested it,” she said. “I do feel like there is a higher power, or whatever you believe in.If it was God, or my mom's prayers and whatnot, it just literally changed my life and my son's life for sure.”
Saranam's approach to ending homelessness and poverty is to involve two generations of a family in the process, pointing to research that shows interventions that consider the needs of kids and parents are more successful.
Executive Director Tracy Weaver said 77% of participants successfully complete the two-year program, with 86% still doing well a year later.
“It's a different kind of program that is really trying to help families get on their own feet,” she said. “And our success rates are really showing that that is happening.”
Ann Lynn Hall, CEO of the local nonprofit Prosperity Works, supports the approach, also known as “multi-gen” or “2gen,” but added that existing systems aren't set up for it.
“Organizations, and actually funding, tend to focus either on kids or on adults,” she said. “And so figuring out how you do both sometimes means having two different organizations work together, or it means shifting the way that work actually gets done.”
Prosperity Works, in part, helps set up savings accounts for children from birth, with families depositing money, and the organization matching it. The organization works with Saranam to get kids in its programs savings accounts, as well.
Hall said mothers of children with these accounts have a 50% reduction in depressive symptoms. The children also score ahead of their peers in social emotional well-being, according to Hall, and even have higher outcomes in math and reading.
“You see all of these different outcomes from one single approach that's really looking at both, what do parents need and what do children need,” Hall said. “And really focusing on all of those needs together.”
Weaver said the 2gen method focuses on improving health and well-being, social and economic capital and education, among other key components of participants' lives.
“If you're going to impact poverty for generations, not just for now, but change those lives of those kids who then change the lives of their own kids — like, the generational change —you've got to have these different components,” she said.
Homelessness in New Mexico has been increasing in recent years, and Weaver said tackling poverty in general is the organization's overarching goal.
Saranam, which means refuge in Sanskrit, welcomed its first families in 2004 and has since served hundreds. It was originally funded by a $4 million endowment left to a small church that was, “Designated to end poverty and homelessness in families,” according to Weaver.
Saranam took that charge seriously, Weaver said, and researched practices that had the best track record of working out long-term before settling on the 2gen method.
Its original campus in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights houses 20 families. Nine more are now living at its second campus, which opened last month on the Westside. Once construction is complete next year, its capacity is set to rise to 23. There will also be a playground, offices, classrooms and a community center.
“It took a couple of years for us to find a place that we could either move into, renovate or build that would have 20 to 25 apartment units, homes,” Weaver said. “In a place that has access to good buses, but is also safe, and access to childcare and grocery stores and resources for the family.”
Families live in renovated school portables that include green features like solar power.
“It cuts the cost per square foot at about half,” Weaver said, “because you're getting the whole frame, the foundation and the roof for one relatively inexpensive purchase.”
Volunteers furnish the apartments based on each family's taste, Weaver said, down to toys and food.
“We were just moving families in today, and one of the new moms saw pictures on the fridge of the ladies that had decorated, and she was like, ‘Who are these people?’” Weaver said, “And we said, ‘Those are the people who put your home together.’ And she said, 'I already feel their love.’”
Saranam resident Plummer said those touches added to the sense of community there, as did the classes it has on everything from financial literacy, to time and conflict management, and health and nutrition.
Then, in the evenings, she said the parents and children spend family time together and incorporate the lesson from earlier in the day with the children. For example, if parents took a class on financial literacy, the family might build a piggy bank and talk about savings.
Everyday has something different, Plummer said.
Families also participate in group activities like a community garden, which Weaver said has lessons for both parents and kids.
“We're metaphorically talking about, ‘What weeds do we pull from our lives? And how do we grow, what we want growing, and how do you make those decisions?’” Weaver said. “But they're also learning how to get along with your neighbors. Like, ‘If I water on Monday, can you water on Tuesday?’ And you know, how do we share that responsibility, and getting the kids involved and being excited about growing things and then cooking with the food.”
Of course, children have to attend school, but the parents also get help with traditional education, from GEDs to certificates or college degrees.
Plummer, who got her associate degree and went to dental school, said Saranam lit her path.
“To help me and guide me, not do things for me,” she said. “And to help me advocate and to get basically from square one.”
She said, looking back, she does not think she would have made it without that support.
“I would almost say there's probably like a 70% chance that I would have failed,” she said. “I'd probably still either be in prison or dead, and without my son.”
Now Plummer is part of Saranam’s alumni program, where she receives ongoing support and volunteers with the next generation of families getting a fresh start.
Support for this coverage comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
