What Home Means to Me: Why Home Matters More This Holiday Season

Categories: Board News, Karwick Village

Thanksgiving is almost here, and the holidays have officially arrived. Soon many of us will pull out the good dishes, make room for one more chair at the table, and drive across town, or across the state, to be home for the holidays.

It’s worth stopping to ask what that word really means: home. One of our board members put it this way:

“Home is a four-letter word that means opportunities. It gives people the basic block for fashioning their lives.” — Shirley, Homeward Bound Villages board member.

This month we’ve been asking our board, our neighbors, and ourselves to finish the sentence “Home means to me…” This year, the answer carries more weight than usual.

Home is a basic human need.

Before a child can concentrate at school, a parent can keep a job, or anyone can recover from illness or plan for the future, they need a safe, stable place to sleep and a door that locks. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes housing as part of an adequate standard of living. Most of us simply see it as the foundation for everything else.

“Home means to me a safe place where a parent can focus on their children… where someone can concentrate on finding employment… where a person can address their challenges and have a place where they can move forward safely.” — Dale Cooper, HBV board member.

When home is secure, everything else has room to grow. When it isn’t, every other part of life gets harder: work, school, health and family.

Why home means even more right now

It’s been a hard year for many families. Groceries, utilities, insurance, and rent all keep climbing, while paychecks haven’t kept pace. Housing is where that squeeze hits hardest.

•Nearly half of renters are stretched too thin. A record 22.7 million U.S. renter households, 49 percent, spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing in 2024, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Although this study is from 2024, these trends have continued to worsen for many Americans.

•Indiana wages aren’t keeping up with rent. A full-time worker in Indiana needs to earn $24.13 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom rental. The average renter in the state earns about $19 an hour. At minimum wage, it would take 3.3 full-time jobs.

•There simply aren’t enough affordable homes. Nationwide, there are just 35 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households, a shortage of 7.2 million homes, according to the Gap Report by the National Housing Coalition.

We know these numbers are relevant here in LaPorte County too. These numbers reflect the cashier, the home health aide, the line cook, and the retiree on a fixed income. Homeward Bound Villages Board member Ed Merrion sees it every day:

“Costs of renting or owning a house are very, very high, and there are simply people who cannot do that and also have their education and get enough food on the table.” — Ed, board member

When the economy tightens, a stable home is what keeps a hard month from becoming a crisis. Right now, home means everything.

Homes, not just housing

At Homeward Bound Villages, our mission is to create community through affordable housing. We chose those words carefully. Housing is a roof and four walls. A home is where you’re known, where neighbors look out for each other and where you have a say in how you live.

Our co-founder, Leigh Coburn, learned that lesson early from a community in Austin, Texas, that inspired our work. Its founder told him, “It’s not the size of the house, it’s the community.” That idea is why Karwick Village is a rental cooperative. Residents help run their own community, make decisions together, and build the kind of connection that turns a building into a home.

“Homeward Bound is not just about houses, though. It’s about a community.” — Lisa, board member.

Those who live at Karwick Village aren’t asking for a handout. As board member Jim put it, “These people are all people that work. They’re not asking for anything but an opportunity to have something that’s theirs.”

Grateful to be home for the holidays

This Thanksgiving marks the first holiday season for Karwick Village’s residents in their homes. That’s what we’re most grateful for this year. Families will gather around their own tables, neighbors will share meals, and the holidays will happen in homes that are safe, stable, and affordable.

“They have a home this holiday season, a stable home this holiday season.” — Leigh Coburn, co-founder.

We’re grateful to our board, our volunteers, our donors, and the partners across Michigan City and LaPorte County who made that possible. None of it happened alone.

We invite you to do the same.

Home for the holidays shouldn’t depend on luck. As you count your own blessings this season, we invite you to help create home for someone else.

•Give. Your holiday gift helps build Karwick Village’s community center, a gathering place for meals, laundry, and connection, and moves us toward six more homes for six more families. Click here to give the gift of home and community this holiday season.

•Share. Pass this post along to your friends and family. Every share helps more neighbors understand what affordable housing can look like here.

•Get involved. Construction, finance, legal work, administration: “There are so many ways to volunteer,” says board member Dan. “We’re always looking for some help.”

This Thanksgiving, when you’re home with the people you love, we hope you’ll think about what home means to you and help make it possible for one more family to say the same.