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>View discussions about this entry País: United States
Organization: Street Soccer USA
Sport - Soccer
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 2004
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Project URL: http://www.streetsoccerusa.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - Homelessness isn't a housing problem, it's a human problem. Rather than build dependent relationships through distributing resources, we create community around a soccer team.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - We offer sports programs focused on homeless adults, 18-25. When a child in foster care ages out or for another reason a young adult ends up on the street, they are offered the same services as homeless adults in their forties and fifties. We see them as a different demographic and seek to engage them before they become fully adapted to living on the street.
We build relationships of trust through shared experience working towards a common goal as part of a soccer team. With this basis of trust we avoid the role playing that goes on in homeless services where people in need tell the appropriate story to be granted the desired resource. We are innovative in using sports to manipulate the social groups people on the street form. Through volunteers and coaches we expand their social network. They develop friendships with peers who are likewise focused on self-improvement. This type of intervention is completely new. Packaging services with soccer reaches people homeless-services otherwise aren't. What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? - The disparity of wealth in America and the afflictions of poverty have worsened in recent decades due to the crack epidemic, breaking apart the traditional family and disrupting education among America's poor. A growing underclass, increasingly young has emerged. It members live isolated, transient lives, homeless and outside of the mainstream culture and the mainstream economy. A culture of defeatism and inferiority has developed. Our soccer team offers inclusion, mentorship, and viable alternative plans to survival-based strategies for existing.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - People who are homeless lack basic needs which they meet most often by visiting service centers. We seek out well-run service centers which wish to add a layer of innovative programming. We meet clients at and operate from such centers.
We offer clients the chance to practice with a team and to compete in league matches. After attending five team-events, players become "team members" at which point they set three, six, and twelve-month personal goals and soccer related goals. Then coaches hold them accountable for those goals. Goal-setting addresses what I call the "homeless time-horizon." Most homeless have been in a survival mentality since their youth and have developed skills for meeting basic needs on a one-day time-horizon. Such a survival mentality is antithetical to getting off the street. Long-term goal-setting extends their time-horizon. By packaging life goals with soccer goals, we not only reach the players with the guidance they need, but encourage them to apply the lessons of athletics directly to real life. How do you plan to grow your innovation? - The chance to participate in our annual US Cup motivates activity among the homeless around the country. Thanks to our partnership with the the Homeless World Cup, players have the added motivation of being selected for the US national team and traveling abroad. These competitions are key to spreading street soccer in the US. We want to maintain a small central office to coordinate growth and ensure excellence in programming.
The demand for new approaches to homelessness is high. We are in contact with agencies in 16 cities nation-wide which want to add street soccer programming. We have developed a simple template for adding on street soccer programming to existing service centers, therefore not duplicating services. Social workers endorse our template because it makes their work more effective, providing inspiration and follow up to their clients on a regular basis. The agencies' directors are excited because street soccer shows their agency has a humanizing, innovative approach, and also garners attention in the media. Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - We want to change the face of homeless services nationwide so that sports and other humanizing activities become key tools to ending homelessness.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? - In Charlotte 20 percent of the chronically homeless population has been directly involved in street soccer programming. 81% have made a significant life change defined by addressing a drug problem or mental illness, maintaining full time employment, or moving off the street permanently. With high demand for such programming around the country (16 agencies in cities from Seattle to Anne Arbor, Michigan to New York have contacted us) we believe we can affect positive change in the lives of thousands of homeless people nationwide.
Our impact is also felt on the local economy. The chronically homeless visit emergency rooms for primary care, spend time in jail due to crimes of homelessness (trespassing, public urination etc.) and consume 80% of all resources dedicated for the homeless. By making an impact among them we impact the entire community. The genius of street soccer is that it involves many volunteers who report the experience of getting to know the homeless through soccer as life-changing and life-enriching.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? - Last year media attention about Street Soccer USA made 33,660,747 impressions on
viewers in news media acrosss the country (number tracked by Emanate PR). Among other print and internet sites, the media outlets included Fox Soccer Channel, CNN, and ESPN Radio. This number reflects how much we do to get the issue of homelessness in front of the public in a way that focuses on homeless people's abilities instead of their problems. What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? - Many outside the homeless services see soccer as frivolous. "Why teach them to kick a ball when you can teach them job skills?" In fact, soccer promotes teamwork and pro-social skills needed in the work place. Many have job skills, it is the support of teammates that makes the difference. Inside homeless services, our relationship-based program challenges accepted rules about client- to-service-provider relationships. At first our approach can meet with resistance. Educating people on these points is a barrier we must overcome.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - Presently Street Soccer USA is financed through the Urban Ministry Center, a nonprofit, interfaith, homeless-services agency. Soccer specific funds come from Bank of America, CocaCola Bottling, Wachovia, and private donors. Eurosport, NIke and others give in kind materials. We believe that Street Soccer USA can be financed through a combination of private and corporate philanthropy and through building a base of volunteers and fans through the grassroots soccer network in the US. Our accessible program allows donors to become directly involved in what they fund. Additionally, we plan to generate our own income through hosting open street soccer tournaments and through cultivating our successful group of homeless national team alumni into a speaking group able to play challenge matches and run panel discussions.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. - Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff. Presently, Street Soccer USA is being incubated within the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte, NC. The budget for the center and all of its services for the homeless is $1.1 million. The revenue is the same. The Urban Ministry Center has 13 full-time and 5 part-time staff. The center is staffed by 30+ volunteers daily.
What is the potential demand for your innovation? - According to HUD's latest estimate over 750,000 Americans are homeless at any one time. HUD's estimate is conservative and based on a narrow definition of who is homeless. Furthermore, the number of homeless is rising. With homelessness becoming an issue in every city in America, and virtually no one using sports to help the homeless develop, the potential is enormous. Furthermore, there are more registered soccer players in the US than in any other country, a great base for volunteers and donor development.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - The main barrier for our program in the US is the challenge of justifying our program's worth in times when non-profit dollars are scarce. Soccer helps the homeless adult's cause to be more sympathetic, but still soccer can be seen as a luxury in the face of emergency serves like soup, showers, housing, and laundry. We need to quantify the return on investment that Street Soccer USA provides the community in terms of dollars and cents to show the impact of our programming.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - At 23, I had been working abroad in Japan and was planning on returning. The volunteer coordinator at the homeless center in Charlotte invited me to do some art projects there. I planned on staying less than three months. It has been over five years. It was clear from the beginning I was onto something powerful. Creating community through common activity among the homeless addressed the issues of isolation and marginalization that were at the core of their homelessness. I realized that I would do more harm than good to come for a summer and leave. At the end of the summer we had a art show to celebrate what we had done. We sold $10,000 worth of the homeless' artwork. I learned that our model of community also spoke powerfully to volunteers. Next I wrote a grant and worked for two years self-employed while creating a staff position at the homeless center for me. I then read about the Homeless World Cup. As and former D-1 college soccer player, I understood that the value of teamwork and community that I learned through soccer. I founded Street Soccer USA on the principles of the art progam. It was the first ever year-round sports-related program for the homeless in the United States. It was very successful, moving chronically homeless individuals off the street in addition to engaging the public in a new way. Now there is a national demand for new programming like ours.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. - At age 19, I had only left my home-state to play in soccer tournaments. Then I won a Dean Rusk Study-Abroad scholarship to spend a summer in Cameroon at a poverty-stricken hospital. The poverty and power of community in Cameroon overwhelmed me and changed me forever. A few years later I was working in Japan, but felt I wanted to do something in my own country. I returned, got involved with the homeless, saw the potential and need, and never looked back.
Contact Information:
Lawrence Cann
Founder/Director, Community Works 945 Street Soccer USA (NGO) Discussions about this entry |
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I played college soccer with one of the Cann brothers, and to see Rob join his brother in this journey to not only share their wealth of knowledge in the game with less fortunate people, but to take a group this size, and growing, off the street and create relationships with them personally and to guide them into relationships with one another through the game of futbol is beautiful to see. I have followed the program, as the Cann brothers have kept me up to date, through the homeless world cup a couple years ago to now and the growth and commitment levels continue to impress me. It takes special people to do what the Cann brothers have been doing over the past 2-3 years in creating something that homeless people can feel a part of, giving them something to get up each day and look forward to, and to continue to raise there self esteem in guiding each individual to their place in society. I hope to see this program continue to grow!
I work with the small but growing Street Soccer team in DC, and I can testify already that street soccer has made an impact in the lives of the men that are participating. Many of them attest to the team work, athletic commitment, and the camaraderie of the street soccer team for motivating them to improve their lives. In the six months we have been around, one player has moved into housing and two others have enrolled into a program to help them find housing. And not only does street soccer provide great motivation, its simply just a fun escape from the daily grind of homelessness. It gives the players something to look forward to at the end of the day and a way to relieve stress.
I have been an outside observer and fan of Street Soccer USA, and of the Cann brothers' hard work. I have visited the Art Park and other team facilities in Charlotte, attended a conference in Philadelphia where the Cann brothers presented on the program, and most importantly have met many of the program's participants. It has been clear to me in all these instances the value the program provides for its participants and for society as a whole. Few things have the power to boost the self-esteem like team sports, few things can stimulate the imagination like travel to a foreign land, and sometimes nothing is better for the mind and body like some fresh air and exercise amongst a fellow community. And Street Soccer USA provides all these things for a group of people who in the absence of this program would be largely without its benefits. The health of the program is essential to the dreams it invigorates, and the network of love and support it creates. I look forward to continue tracking the success and growth of the program and of its members with each coming year. It is refreshing and reassuring to see such programs full of earnest and selfless service continue to prosper.
The compassionate and passionate leadership of the Cann brothers and the support of the Urban Ministry Center, Charlotte, have created an "urban soccer model" that has much to offer the world's displaced and disenfranchised. Soccer is a means to create the human solidarities that the mechanisms of government and commerce typically fail to consider. Further, the game connects homeless and formerly homeless women and men to the wider world, showing that their predicaments are universal.
In training soccer players and building them into a team capable of participating in international tournaments, Street Soccer USA and programs who since have adopted the urban soccer model offer tools for living: a sense of belonging, forgiveness, self-mastery and enthusiasm. To top it off, the Charlotte program makes team members citizens of the world, regardless of whether they ever leave the confines of Tryon Street.
Street Soccer USA creates a new economy of fellowship through soccer. In developing capacities to give and receive, participants transform themselves and those fortunate enough to see them play.
i spent some time in charlotte volunteering at the street soccer tournament last summer.Amazing changes in the people involved in the program.Their sense of worth and their having a place in this world.What a great program
As someone who personally worked with street soccer USA in Charlotte, NC on the Artpark project where we designed and built a new soccer field that also is a public art project, garden, group game space, and performance area, I cannot stress enough how this program has changed lives, encouraged social skills through sport, and improved communication, understanding, compassion, and commitment for all involved. I am a University professor who brought six students here week after week and I'm not sure who has changed more - the academic volunteers or our homeless counterparts. I still remember asking Lawrence at the very beginning of the project if this seemed like something the Center would be interested in, and he said to me - we are here to help everyone, you and your students included. That is the joy and magic of street soccer - skill or no skill, male or female, at the bottom or heading to the top, everyone can try, everyone can learn, everyone can improve. This is such a worthy effort for so many people who need it. And in the end, we all do make up the community of human participants - every level, every type, every person.