Motivated to help the homeless: Inspiration Corporation

By Kristin Bivens
Her charcoal hair framed her face in a bob that just reached her shoulders. Her tennis shoes had various colors, but looked worn, as if they have endured several Midwest winters. They belong to Naomi Tankersley, whose job as a career specialist for the homeless, in some ways, is to help provide a little inspiration.

In fact, Tankersley, 25, works at Inspiration Corporation, a Chicago-based organization that helps those in need across the city.The organization’s mission: to help “people who are affected by homelessness and poverty to improve their lives…through the provision of social services, employment training and placement, and housing.”

Tankersley, with a grass-colored bandana hung loosely around her neck, said she focuses more on helping the homeless prepare themselves for and also find jobs, adding that unemployment and homelessness often have a cause and effect relationship.

Tankersley started her career just two hours away from Chicago in South Bend, Ind., at the Center For the Homeless—which is not a homeless shelter but a place for the homeless to seek services in South Bend—as an intern. She later moved to Chicago and happened to find the job at Inspiration Corporation online. She has worked at Inspiration for nearly a year.

“From my experiences, I knew that it would match up pretty well,” Tankersley said.

Tankersley also has experience with poverty that she didn’t find working with the homeless in South Bend and at Inspiration. Though she was not homeless herself, as a child growing up in a violent neighborhood in South Bend, her family faced some difficult times that she says have impacted her career choices greatly.

Tankersley’s parents divorced before she was out of diapers and her mother was left to raise three small children alone. To make ends meet, her mother rented out part of their house and performed manual labor, Tankersley recalled. Despite her mother’s hard work, the family still needed government aid. Tankersley said if it wasn’t for her grandmother moving in with them to help out, her family may have ended up on the street.

She recalls as a child her mother often picking up people on the side of the road who were carrying groceries and driving them to their destination, even if the destination was out of the way. Watching her mother work so hard and give to so many had a lasting effect.

In her current position, Tankersley helps those in need to create resumes or rework already existing resumes and create goals for themselves. She also helps her clients create a work plan so they can figure out exactly what they want to do career wise. Tankersley said she is not responsible for finding specific jobs for her clients. In fact, most people who come in to see her usually find their own jobs. She’s just there to help assist them in whatever way she can in that process.

The most rewarding part of her job?

“I know it sounds kind of cliché, but really, actually seeing people accomplish their goals,” said Tankersley.

She said one has to have a certain type of toughness in her line of work. But it does not appear that she has not allowed her toughness to destroy her empathy for her clients.

“I would say most of, if not all of our population, has experienced a serious amount of trauma in their lives, and when people relay that kind of trauma to you, you vicariously experience trauma,” Tankersley said.

“I’ve gone home and cried about things and I’m not necessarily a crier. People really do have amazing survival stories.”

One of Tankersley’s coworkers, Emily Hunt, a case manager at Inspiration Corporation, said Tankersley’s compassion and patience are two of her best qualities that help her succeed at her job.

“She’s always very polite and very compassionate when she meets with each person,” Hunt said. She added that Tankersley doesn’t treat her clients differently just because they may be worse off than another client.

Tankersley typically starts her work day by walking down the bright yellow lighted hallways of the center, at 4554 N. Broadway Ave., Suite 207, to the kitchen, where she greets the morning kitchen assistants. Inspiration Corporation also has a branch located on the city’s South Side that Tankersley sometimes visits, in addition to the Broadway branch.

In the time she has worked with the homeless, Tankersley says she has come to believe several policy changes and social improvements need to be made locally and nationally to effectively deal with homelessness in America. Among them are improving and empowering families on the one level and on another, improving housing and lending policies.

Tankersley also says that racism is a big factor in homelessness. Chicago’s history, she said, has had segregation written all over it, and has led to poor housing policies for blacks.

“The poorest people live in the worst conditions and usually that means you’re black and living on the Southside,” she said.

Despite the challenges of her job and the difficult situations she says she encounters helping those in need, who often come to her in dire circumstances, Tankersley still approaches each day as an opportunity to make a difference. Why?

“Because I care,” she said.