''Momma, I want that house!"
The 6-year-old is pointing out the window from the backseat. A minute later: "Momma, I want that house!"
There are six of us -- Chantel Carter and her four children -- stuffed in my Mini Cooper as we head back from an early supper at the S&S Cafeteria in West Ashley. It's a tight squeeze, particularly with the car seat for the 7-week-old.
We've been talking about the nightmare of a mom and her kids being homeless. In the past six months, the Carter family has lived in 18 places -- a few days in a motel here, a friend's floor there, back to a motel room and on and on. The past few months have brought a tenuous stability, sharing a cramped one-bedroom apartment with her grandmother on Joy Street.
"I tell them we are going to get through this together," Carter is telling me. Then to the kids, she adds: "We'll get through this, y'all."
It's 12 days before Christmas, and there's no joy on Joy Street. Carter's grandmother is leaving town for the holiday, and they have to be out in a matter of days, yet again. Where will they be for Christmas? They don't have a clue.
Life is unforgiving when you live on the margins. Carter, 32, grew up in East Side public housing and dropped out of high school when she became pregnant with her first child, a boy. She's been a cashier at fast-food restaurants and cleaned rooms at some of Charleston's finest hotels.
She eventually got her own apartment in those same East Side projects and had three more children, all girls. Her last child was born Oct. 22 at Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital. The three other kids stayed in the hospital room with their mom for three days. They had no other place to go.
Carter was evicted from her apartment in June, when she was three months pregnant. The father of her four children left; she doesn't have a car. She and her children, now ages 13 to seven weeks, were homeless for the first time.
"Everything fell apart once I lost my place," Carter says.
This is where we newspaper hacks like to say "and she's not alone." And Chantel Carter surely is not.
The Charleston County School District estimates there are 400 homeless students from 120 families in its system. Most live in North Charleston, but there are homeless students in every constituent district, says the district's Sonya Jones.
About 5% of them stay at One80 Place, Charleston's largest provider of services to the homeless, Jones says. About 35% stay in motels and hotels. Fifty-five percent are doubled and tripled up with family and friends. And 5% live in cars, storage sheds or worse.
After 120 years, Star Gospel Mission knows about homelessness, its causes and how to help people mend. And now this East Side institution is readying a return to its original mission of lifting up not only men but women and children as well.
Star Gospel, which takes its name from the Star Vaudeville Theater, where it started in 1904 at the corner of King and Columbus streets, narrowed its focus to serve men only after Hurricane Hugo leveled its Meeting Street home in 1989.
The Rev. Marion Platt returned to Charleston 3½ years ago to run Star Gospel, the same place that took in his own homeless father so many years ago. And Pastor Marion, as he is known, has come with an ambitious vision.
In the next four years, Pastor Marion and his board want to almost triple the number of men housed at Star Gospel to 85 and add 52 beds for women and children. Overall, the mission will go from 30 men to 137 men, women and children. Projected cost: $12.3 million.
Homeless shelters are critical: When you need one, you really need one. But Pastor Marion is running a program, not a shelter that provides a stay for a few nights. Star Gospel's men's program and its new "Morning Light" initiative for women and children are built for longer stays that include counseling, life-skills training and connections to community resources.
"The goal of a program like Morning Light is not to provide temporary shelter, but to empower women and their children to experience lasting stability and self-sufficiency within a supportive environment," Pastor Marion says. It can take up to two years to recover from the trauma of homelessness, he says.
The Friends of Morning Light, a group of about 30 women, mostly from East Cooper, pledged to raise $3 million. The expansion also will be financed in part by Evening Post Industries to meet some of its affordable housing requirements for Courier Square, a multiphase project that includes the former home of this newspaper. You can help, too, by becoming a Friend of Morning Light.
All people and things can recover if we give them a chance. In this I believe.
And Chantel Carter and her kids? The Carter family got the best present possible: a place of their own for Christmas and beyond, thanks to a team effort by the cities of North Charleston and Charleston. Ho, ho, ho, and Merry Christmas to all.
Steve Bailey is a regular contributor to The Post and Courier Opinion section. He can be reached at sjbailey1060@yahoo.com.