Last year, I left a position at a homeless advocacy nonprofit and returned to the journalism startup I helped launch. After sharing last month some of the member interviews I collected while working at Back on My Feet, I realized there were other lessons I wanted to share.

I worked for Back on My Feet for less than a year and while there, I wasn’t deep into our programming work, but rather promoting the organization by way of sharing member stories, using social media, managing our website and even working with traditional media contacts. You know, and growing staff interest in content creation, most notably video, like these 15 best examples.

But, you can rest assured that I tried to learn as much as I could with my time there about the social services work and agencies on which our mission and some of my colleagues focused. I was blessed with serving a role that let me meet, speak and share with more of our members than most any of our staff, outside those serving direct care.

I encouraged our staff to use our blog as a way to share homelessness news, and I myself curated weekly news roundups on the subject. I also picked the brains of anyone I came in contact with in or outside ‘the system’ as it is often called.

Given all that, I thought I might share just some of what comes to mind as take aways and lessons from the world of homelessness, particularly in Philadelphia.

I’ll say that while my role with Back on My Feet was national and I took a great interest in homelessness conversations broadly, I naturally saw these challenges through the prism of Philadelphia, where the organization and I were based. I’ll also underscore what I already said: I am in no way a seasoned social services expert, but rather someone who worked with such an organization took great personal interest and curiosity in the field..

On homelessness generally:

• You don’t know someone, even if you know some of their most intimate experiences — I promised myself very quickly that I wouldn’t act like I knew any of the members with whom I shared a few conversations. There is something tricky about the emotions involved when someone tells you their most personal thoughts, speaks about their most personal experiences. You feel like you know them, and I watched people get confused. I tried to always remind myself that I didn’t really know any of our members. I knew their names and became friendly with some, friendly like you do with anyone you share a handful of conversations, and some even treated me by sharing their stories, but that, I’m afraid, is the end of it. I often knew their stories — the five minute summation of what brought them to where they were — but I didn’t know many of them well.
• I met men who were institutionalized. Men who, I felt in my very limited experienced with them, were scared to move out or move on. Men who had become accustomed to receiving, as they say in the system, ‘three hots and a cot.’ You get used to that, and, for some, it’s hard to move on because you risk so much.
• The loss of jobs is the single biggest cause for the growth of homelessness in the past half century — Today we talk a lot in the industry about the shortage of affordable housing, but I feel like that is more of an effect than a cause. This from the second in an impactful four part series of hunger from the Philadelphia Inquirer: “In the district and nearby areas [of the first congressional district], 300,000 jobs disappeared between 1950 and 1980, helping to create a lost world of generations of un- or underemployed people…” Updated: A former colleague wanted to clarify that jobs today is not the only answer he finds many individuals that he works with struggle to keep the job, due to lack of adequate education and training, so continuing education and requisite motivation/inspiration may be a bigger issue to date, though the cycle broke with jobs.
• Program opportunities are varied – Homeless facilities, street cafes, emergency housing, religious missions, recovery homes, transitional housing, subsidized housing,
• Rapid rehousing is the biggest conversation happening in homelessness right now — When academics talk about the root problem of homelessness, we circle around (a) education (b) jobs (c) affordable housing. There are entire degrees here that I won’t begin to touch, but there is a big movement to date that focuses on offering housing first to people looking to get out of homelessness. It is still controversial.
• Financial impact isn’t a consideration for long-term change — Social services groups, in my opinion, have failed to adequately expose the cost to government in acute, chronic and family homelessness. Some are trying, like Philly’s Project H.O.M.E., which released this report [PDF].
• The first national strategy on combating homelessness landing in 2010 — We are still new to these big conversations.
• Guys on the street busking for money are just one part of homelessness — Census numbers for homelessness are controversial, as by nature, the numbers are fluid and nomadic and changing. People leave cities, neighborhoods, move in with friends and relatives, get month-to-month flop houses and then hit the streets again. As noted below, there are dozens of different types of housing facilities, so while permanent housing is usually the gauge for homelessness, what is permanent anyway? People on the street asking for money vary wildly, from those new to the system and down on their luck, to hustlers, to drug and alcohol abusers, to those with clinical physical and mental difficulties making it difficult to serve in facilities. After a year with Back on My Feet, while walking in Center City, I bump into our members from time to time — guys with jobs, those without them — and they are not who even I normally associate with homelessness.

Below, watch Antonio LaBoy, one of our Philadelphia members, with whom I spoke to several times, once at length and on video.

On addiction and recovery: (as noted above, not all of our members experienced addiction, but nearly three quarters of our members did, so there were lots of lessons there)

• Someone’s first try at addiction recovery will probably fail. But you have to try the first time to get to the second and the third and the fourth time. Somewhere down that path, that person might actually, deeply want to come clean for themselves and, by then, it might actually stick. These are messy, messy affairs.
• Lots of cliches are overused in this space because they’re so damn accurate. See below.
• You have to hit rock bottom – The people who succeed in the Back on My Feet program have had their moment of clarity and are often already moving forward when they connect with us. If a member is in the program for any reason other than themselves — for family, for sneakers, even for God — it doesn’t seem to end so well.
• You will be lied to today — This was something a friend of mine from our programming staff would say to me. We talked a lot about finding the line of supporting members we came to care about and facing the reality of the pressures in their lives, from addiction to friends to family to work to money to the rest, that pushed honesty down in the priority list.
• Every person is a new person — The stories came to get redundant, but then there were those with totally different stories. I needed to remind myself to not get caught up in stereotypes: for every few members who grew up in bad neighborhoods, dropped out of school, got into selling drugs, then using drugs, then found themselves without another choice but recovery, there was a functioning school teacher or the guy from the suburbs.
• Recovery is never over — You keep counting those days and saying those prayers. You’re not ever recovered. You’re recovering, in recovery or, as an alumnus of our program once told me, “trying to remember everyday why I’m not doing those things anymore, even two years later.”
• Addiction can come about in many forms — Like drugs and alcohol and work and physical abuse, as one of our Boston members taught me, as you can see below.

On the social services industry and those who work in it:

• Social service staff have to draw and maintain firm boundaries and lines, which often intersect, cross and conflict with the hopes, dreams and lives of people, real, living, breathing human beings.

From left: Back on My Feet Media Director Christopher Wink; New Jerusalem Member David Bayo; Ridge Shelter Member Lavon Norwood; Philadelphia Executive Director Sera Snyder; at back Henry A. Davidsen custom tailoring founder Brian Lipstein, who donated the suits many of our members are wearing; in front, motivational speaker Warren McDonald; New Jerusalem Member Merald Archie; Outley House Member Derrick Hopkins and RWA Member Felix Berrios at a Philadelphia Business Clubs of America meeting at the Union League on July 23, 2010.

On Philadelphia’s homelessness services:

• There is a vibrant and varied social services community in Philadelphia. Lots of groups, lots of interest, lots of politics, lots of perspective.
• Ridge Avenue Shelter, at Broad and Ridge near Fairmount, is the single male intake facility and because of that, the city’s largest facility. Because of all of that, Ridge is being closed this year. In a movement also seen in schools, we’re moving toward smaller, more targeted facilities.
• Resources for Human Development, which manages Ridge, and Public Health Management Corporation are two of the biggest players — These Philly based companies contract out with the city to manage many of the facilities and do other related work. For example, RHD prints One Step Away, a street newspaper, written, edited, published and sold by people experiencing homelessness.
• Project H.O.M.E is the most respected and varied big-name program — The magnus opus of Sister Mary Scullion. You aren’t a real player in this community if you don’t know Sister Mary, and your organization isn’t real if it isn’t partnering with Project H.O.M.E. That said, all of the better known programs, like Project H.O.M.E., are always called into question for being better at PR than deep impact. It’s a regular debate.
• “Philadelphia’s shelter system makes beggars out of hustlers,” another member told me, noting that compared to other cities he had been, one could get more comfortable here. [Note: one person's take]
• Don’t give change on the streets — It sounds so cruel. So, really, it shouldn’t necessarily be a rule, but just an understanding. It’s not a free card to not care, it’s recognizing that the issue is so complex that change just gets lost for so many reasons. So, sure, give change when the moment feels right, but understand that (A) there are free, obligation-free meals given nearly every time of day in Philadelphia and (B) you probably could have a bigger impact by volunteering your time or giving your money to an existing organization that has a mission of combating homelessness.
• Keeping in mind the controversy noted above, there are an estimated 7,600 homeless people in Philadelphia at any given time.
• Every group of people, including those experiencing homelessness, has hardworking people and people trying to get over on the system. I felt my most liberal of co-workers were too trusting and the few too jaded were too judgmental. Both had their reasons. I met and came to know men and women who were truly trying to make good, but I also came to know members who felt entitled and angry. They, too, had their reasons, but often that entitlement and anger affected wrongly those who deserved it least.
• Download the 2009 Philadelphia Street Sheet here [PDF], which includes a list of provided meals throughout the city. You can also find a list of meals provided throughout the city here.
• Homelessness services listed here.
• There are legends of Philadelphia’s homeless community — There’s the Chicken Man and Adam, the soccer player who signs $15 checks to homeless people every Monday after.
• Those seeking help often tended to be older — Our Back on My Feet members were more regularly at least 40, and other homelessness groups had similar stories, as a lot of young people crash with others and are still ‘in the lifestyle,’ to use a phrase of our members. That said, young adults are a growing part of homelessness in this economy.
• There is a hotline to call — And weather requirements encourage the city to use it. Outreach Hotline at 215-232-1984

Short, compelling videos of interest travel well on the web.

That means video can take your brand, organization, mission, message or call to action with it. I served my media director role with Back on My Feet for less than a year, but I’m proud of moving the staff to more frequent video creation for those reasons and to give our members — people experiencing homelessness — a platform to share their stories.

Looking back, though I shared other metrics from my time there, I realized I never shared the best of what I thought was some meaningful video for just a start.

So, below, that’s what I do, highlight 15 of the best videos we created during my tenure as media director, clamoring on email that “everything is content!”

A Boston member of the month Jackie Kenyon talking about her path:

There were also some great write ups, like this one of a Boston member grappling with serious weight issues.

We highlighted new members each month, like Tyrone Collins in Philadelphia not long before I left.

One of the first member interviews we did on video was with Stacy Stone at Brotherhood Mission in Philadelphia:

One of the more powerful member speeches was from a Boston volunteer talking about her own past with addiction, one of physical and emotional abuse.

We took to tracking progress and interest of our members, by introducing them early in the process and planning on checking in later, as we did below with some new Chicago members.

We highlighted our corporate partners, like the Hauptman Wellness Center and, as seen below, tailor Henry A. Davidsen, which donated suits for our members.

Baltimore member Charlie Tiller was interviewed for the Baltimore Bash.

I grabbed video of Philadelphia alumni Eddie Smith speaking at the 2010 Bash.

I interviewed Philadelphia alumnus Kenny Herder at least a half dozen times.

We interviewed our volunteers, especially before they tried to run 100 miles straight in our 20in24 ultra-marathaon.

Philadelphia Member Antonio LaBoy spoke poignantly about losing a son and that affect on addiction. Below is one of several videos:

During the Boston chapter launch, Philadelphia alumnus Kevin Brown brought down the house with his emotional, honest story.

Video played a role in many ways other than member stories.

We amplified and archived what we shared at smaller events, like when our founder Anne Mahlum spoke at the National Press Club in Washington D.C..

We introduced our audience to our organization, like celebrating our staff running the Chicago Marathon or, as seen below, the tradition of staff signing a wall in our office.

We were able to share the many, many TV news stories, like D.C. member Chris Hatton, who returned from serious jail time to work for stability.

We used existing video to connect our running-crazed base, like with these great commercials.

Video also enabled us to share amazing opportunities our members had. I can’t embed the video and I can’t lay claim to having anything to do with this, but one of our Baltimore members and a Vietnam veteran spoke before a Congressional sub-committee on Veteran homelessness.

We offered a multimedia dimension to our events, like this Bash introduction video.

The devotion to video has continued. Recently I noticed that the staff made sure to record the Dallas chapter launch kickoff speaker, and Charlie Tiller made the organization proud.

And the second part

On the Back on My Feet blog, we don’t do enough of it, but when issues surrounding homelessness come up, we are sure to share them with our readers.

So when the very big news of the country’s first national report on homelessness was published and was part of a call to end homelessness in five years, we certainly shared it promptly, following our primary source of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.

That happened June 25, so I was certainly interested to see the first mention in Philadelphia of that big report come by way of an editorial from the beleaguered Inquirer on July 5.

That’s a startup nonprofit feeding important industry news to its supporters before news media. Note the obvious trend.

Today, I’d like to announce the official content platform for homeless running nonprofit Back on My Feet.

I announced in February my taking a job with the Center City-based organization that uses running clubs to create support around homeless populations seeking to move forward. From my first interview, I highlighted the need to use a blog to share the heavy dosage of content, member stories and updates that come from the nonprofit’s now-four chapters and growing.

I’m very interested in tracking all the web metrics I can, from traffic to social media trends, for Back on My Feet. Launching this blog — a project I initiated and have led — came without question and has been a great source of pride thus far.

Before I came on, the nonprofit was sticking content on a newswheel that should be much more static for, say, press releases and fundraising event information. Now, we chapter and topic-specific feeds in both daily e-mail blasts and trackable RSS feeds.

It’s a way to develop an audience that extends beyond our existing supporters and volunteers. I’m planning on doing that by going beyond organizational posts. I’m running compelling content around our mission and heavy amounts of our member stories.

Get an RSS feed or e-mail blast on our selective mission-orientated updates — conversations around issues of homelessness and important and compelling member stories which rarely flood you more than once a week. Full feed here.

Weekly stats from our new Back on My Feet blog after a recent soft launch. Click to enlarge

Some obvious lessons from the blog early:

• Consistency — You need to consistently — yeah, like daily — offering content
• Interesting content — Go beyond your organization and offer powerful content around your mission
• Get the entire staff involved — Everyone has to chip in to make it bold, well-rounded and regular

Two of our most trafficked posts:

• Antonio LaBoy speaks about his path
• Kevin Brown gives keynote speech at Boston chapter launch breakfast, which you can watch below

I’ll be updating more on this project in the future for sure and offer insights I find. Stay tuned.

Much love to the boys and girls at Northern Liberties design firm O3World, which offers pro bono hosting and design work for the organization. Their propriety CMS backs the BOMF website, and they helped me tweak out and integrate the WordPress blog platform.

Back on My Feet founder Anne Mahlum and members of the organization in 2007.

I’ve decided to step away from self-employment.

I’ve spent the last year of my life freelancing, by some accounts, at perhaps the worst time to do so in my life and arguably the worst time in the history of journalism.

After a meeting of the most influential media leaders in the region made clear no drastic foundational investment would be made into niche news anytime soon, I knew I needed to secure my finances — as a new homeowner, especially — and take a more cautioned approach toward building News Inkubator, Technically Philly and NEast Philly.

A funny thing happened not a week or two after I made this decision. A friend made me aware of a job opportunity I actually wanted.

On Mon. Jan. 18, I walked into a Locust Street building in Center City Philadelphia and began defining what a media director should do for homeless advocacy nonprofit Back on My Feet.

I spent nearly three full semesters working with Philadelphia government oversight organization Committee of Seventy in the beginning of my college career, offering some policy research, the occasional graphic design tweak and other gap-filling. For almost all of it, I worked under the tutelage of a precocious, 25-year-old, workaholic, marathoner North Dakota native named Anne Mahlum.

She was fun and challenging, and I knew then that she had her sights set high.

We had two breakfasts in summer 2007. During one, she told me about telecommunications giant Comcast luring her to a high-paying lobbying gig. During the second, she told me that after accepting the job, she reconsidered and launched Back on My Feet, what started as a homeless running club and has now become an advocacy agency that creates a community around running and then connects participants with job training and job placement programs and will be in four cities by May.

Nearly three years later, her organization needed a 14th staff member and thought it should be someone to handle the group’s Web presence and develop relationships with traditional media.

I interviewed with Anne and others Monday Jan. 11, had a follow up by phone that Wednesday and accepted later that day. Told I was pitted against an older crop of more traditionally experienced marketing people, I pitched hard on my role extending to content creation around the issues of homelessness, job creation and other related social advocacy plots.

Back on My Feet had caught the attention of runners already, but to continue to grow they needed a world of people interested in social justice. To attract them to our site — and eventually bring them on as volunteers and donors — let me create a blog that chronicles the plights of the men and women with whom we work and the conversations that are happening around these issues.

It could prove to be more serious journalism than what I’ve done the past year as a full-time freelance reporter.

After I started, here’s what I more officially wrote out:

My five primary responsibilities now as I see them currently (I put them in order of time I think I’d spend on them, from most to least time):

1. *Our own content — I think this has the potential to be most important and involve the most time. The primary vehicle for this would be a blog placed highly and incorporated fully into BackonMyFeet.org. This would be the daily-updated stream of all BOMF content, including standard organization updates and offers, but buttressed with multimedia, interviews/day-in-the-life pieces on residential members, tracking of media coverage and perhaps a weekly/monthly podcast on homelessness and systemic joblessness.
2. Social media — Interject BOMF into the conversation, connect with people online and build branding (Twitter and Facebook to start)
3. Legacy media — Make traditional story pitches to established media, leveraging my existing relationships.
4. Partnerships and events — I think my role is natural to help develop, or at least highlight potential partners in content and in our mission (other nonprofits, academic and research institutions, etc.)
5. Independent media — Indie blogs, smaller niche publications and the like shouldn’t be ignored — smaller, more targeted audiences often mean they’ll take even more seriously the coverage

To start, I’ll have to trim down our existing bloated site and otherwise transition — introducing myself and finding my place. Beginning my third week, I’m quite pleased and look forward to tracking our progress.

I’m sure there will be updates to come.

Some measurable starting points:

1. Using internal analytics, but also a (perhaps very) rough guide can be seen publicly here, which shows about 3,700 unique visitors in December
2. Social media accounts: (Starting on my first Monday morning) Our Twitter account had 335 followers, 99 tweets and was listed 30 times, in addition to just about 35 @replies since April (I got nearly half that yesterday alone, including GPTMC); Our Facebook account had 727 friends and had fallen inactive; Our Youtube account had 10 uploads and 12 subscribers
3. We’ll also try to track the volunteers and donors who come over the transom of the Web.

Though certainly now only during nights and weekends, I will remain an active partner in Technically Philly and NEast.