When you need help here, like with counseling or if you are a teen mom, you get that help. Voss spent time at all 11 Duval County sites operated by Community Connections, formerly the YWCA, which helps women, children and families develop skills to become self-sufficient. While in town, she stayed with Sil Vazquez, a former Community Connections program site director, and with Jo McIntel, the organization's volunteer services coordinator. She shadowed caseworkers on home visits, spent time with teenage mothers and adult women in the transitional housing program, worked with kids in the after-school programs and visited the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless and The Link, which helps young kids prepare for school. What struck her most was the number of volunteers in the city.
People give their free time to children.
I have never seen that in Germany. Neither had she seen a transitional housing program for the homeless. Germany's homeless are housed in single-resident occupancy, similar to the U.S. public housing system. They give them an apartment, and they meagerly live there until another crisis evolves. We are interested in making them self-sufficient and good community citizens.