For my teaching project, I invited members of my family as well as neighbors to my home in Riverside, California. There were drinks and snacks provided. I set up rows of chairs in the living room area. Here about 15 members of my family gathered to hear me speak at the front of the room. I focused on two topics from our class. The first was breaking stereotypes. I chose this topic because stereotypes are really detrimental to the homeless. If the blame can be placed on an individual’s bad life choices, then there is never a need to question the bigger picture. This is also important because if the audience failed to understand the other aspects of the teaching project and the bigger picture, maybe at the least, this talk about stereotypes would change how they interact with the homeless and panhandlers in their own lives. The second thing I wanted to focus on was the structural causes of homelessness. The shift the blame from the individual to the structural.

I opened up the talk by introducing them to the class and what we have covered over the semester. I passed around the syllabus and some of the books that we’ve read. To dive into the subject matter, I started out by showing the audience a few short videos from Invisible people.org. This is the website that we interacted with at the beginning of the class this semester. It showed people talking in their own words about life on the street and how they got where they are. I thought this would be a better way for the ‘breaking stereotypes’ as it is easier to make a human connection with this demographic if you are hearing their stories in their own voices. There was a small discussion afterwards about their reactions to the videos. The next phase of the talk was me presenting them various aspects of the structural issues. I printed out maps, charts and some statistics that went along with my talking points. Then there was a wrap up discussion at the end. During this time, I answered any final questions. I also asked each person to write down something new they learned, a question they still had, or any sort of reflection on the topics that had been covered.

Overall, I think the event went well. The audience was engaged in discussion and really contemplated the material. Members of the audience brought up their own personal ties to certain struggles as well as issues that I did not mention. Most of them understood the structural causes but at times revealed that their view of homeless individuals were still stereotypical.

My internship was at a food bank here in the Inland Empire. This organization collects both local and nationally donated foods from a variety of sources. The donations are processed through their warehouse and then distributed to a variety of organizations (such as shelters, youth homes, soup kitchens, etc.) that share similar goals of helping those in need. This organization is functional due to their efficient structure.

The first important aspect is the staff and volunteers. Volunteers and staff are used as basically labor. It’s not intensive,  but they need as many hands as possible to pack boxes so the organization can stay efficient.There is a very relaxed hierarchy within the warehouse, everyone’s basically performing similar tasks. They emphasize a team dynamic

Funding is also vital to this organization. It costs the organization money to transport and store the food that they collect. Corporate sponsors play a huge role in financial assistance. Feeding America and United Way are the two main partners that provide financial donations.They also get revenue from what they call a shared maintenance contribution.  Some members told me corporate donations allow them to waive handling fees for the organizations they are providing to. While others told me they did have to pay. If you look at the application forms online, there is a detailed section of the contract regarding these fees. Either way, someone pays for their services. Local financial donations are also collected but they have a much smaller impact on the finances.

In order for an organization to become aligned with food bank and receive food, they must go through an application process.  The application is about twelve pages long detailing the steps an organization needs to take and paperwork to be filled out. It serves as a contract between the two parties as it outlines expectations and rules that are to be followed to receive food.

All of these structural aspects affects how well they live up to their goals and mission statement. This organization is efficient and successful in their goals. They provide food to organizations around the county and play an important role in feeding hundreds of people year around since 1980. But there are some downfalls to the type of assistance they offer when considering the bigger picture of poverty.

Having a large pool of donors is great for quantity but not for quality.  Most common items were snack foods, condiments and cereal that had little to no nutritional value and many of the donations are also either already expired or nearing expiration. There were some organic and gluten free items but they were still snack foods.

This organizations plays a huge role in feeding those in need and they do great work on the micro scale. They do not attack the issues on a structural level. It is a more reactionary type of assistance. This food bank will not achieve their mission of ending hunger within their function and structure as an organization. Providing someone with food enables individuals to survive while on the street or in hard times but not a way for any individual to escape their situations.

I am interning at a local food bank.  This organization doesn’t directly distribute food to the homeless, instead they  collect food donations from a variety of sources and distributes the items to local charities. The charities they are associated with are the ones who get the food into the hands of those who need it.  This organization was established in the 1980’s.

The food items that are donated come from the local community. They also highlight the fact that they have access to nationally donated food (for example, manufacturers such as Kraft of Kellogg’s items). Most of the items are things that cannot be sold. Some examples of reasons why an item cannot be sold includes dented cans, ripped packaging, or mislabeled products.  Grocery stores and farmers  donate their surplus items as well as those that are nearing their expiration. Even though they cannot be sold by retailers, all of the products are still safe for consumption.

Preparing the product is the main activity volunteers assist with. There is a vague assembly line type set up. There are people who sort the product, people who tape up the final boxes and people who transfer the final boxes to the pallets. The organization has different categories for their products.Food is packed according to different categories which include snacks, complete meals, fresh produce, condiments, cereal, meat/dairy, and other.  While packing boxes, it’s important to keep in mind that it must meet a certain weight requirement.  The required weight is dependent on which category the box falls under. It’s also important that the boxes have a variety of food items in them. They want to avoid situations where ,for example, an organization gets multiple 19 pound boxes full of chocolate bars.

While I didn’t sort any products that fall into the ‘other’ category, sometimes they do receive items that are not food. There were toiletries and Nair products being unloaded at one point. One of the staff members told me Target donated about a dozen bicycles a few days before.

The staff are the one who keep the floor organized and productive. Since most of the time there is at least one new volunteer, they help get people get familiar with the process. While talking with the staff, there is a pattern of short employment with the organization and revolving staff members. People don’t stay as staff for too long, the majority had been there for a few months. There are also staff in the offices that handle communication and paperwork side of the organization.  This organization seems to attract an array of age groups for volunteers.  You have to be at least 18 years old to volunteer but other than that, there are no other requirements. The influx of volunteers are heavily relied on as they have low numbers of staff.

The last few classes have focused on various methods for counting the homeless. In order to receive federal funding, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires counties to count their homeless populations every two years. Each county comes up with their own funds and methodology to complete the homeless counts. Some counties make the task a community effort to get the most accurate results while others put less effort into the surveys. Because there is not a nation-wide method or funding for these surveys the accuracy of these results are not always reflective of actual homeless populations.

There are problems with such a flexible system for reports.With most methodologies used, it is unlikely that the survey truly reflects the entire homeless population. HUD’s restrictive definitions of what ‘homeless’ is also plays into inaccurate representations. Despite these issues, it is important to count the number of homeless people. These HUD requirements make it so that these counties are unable to ignore the homeless in their areas. The resulting statistics for each county makes it apparent that something needs to be done to assist the homeless. These statistics make the phenomenon of homelessness seem extremely overwhelming. It seems hard to understand where to start as we have found out there are many reasons and structural failures as the why people end up homeless. On the flip side I feel like such reports and statistics can be a wake up call and a motivating factor. Individuals, such as ourselves, can be inspired to volunteer and communities may decide they need better programs.

While reading the ASR reports, listening to past presentations, and beginning internships, the main problem that seems to be throughout each is how homeless people can escape homelessness. Homeless people face many societal and personal challenges each day. Communities will offer various forms of assistance, but often there is a lack of resources available. In two of the ASR reports (which provides statistical information about the homeless population in a given city) both had populations of 50% that were ‘chronically homeless’. Those who are homeless may have strategies to help them survive, but there financial stability is almost impossible without proper resources to successfully transition out of homelessness.

In Tell Them Who I Am by Liebow, he argues that there are structural and policy based obstacles to homelessness and that a main factor is providing housing assistance as a stepping stone out of homelessness. A recent 60 minutes special addresses the need for such stepping stones as the ‘100,000 Homes Campaign’ is discussed. This campaign works with non-profits and local governments to provide permanent homes for those who are chronically homeless and have health problems. A person is not discriminated against if they are alcoholics or drug abusers, the main goal is to house those who are considered to be high risk. So far they’ve raised funds to house about 80,000. This campaign encourages people to join through compassion but also finances. The organization promotes that it cost taxpayers more than to help them afford homes, “The inability to tend to your basic healthcare needs, results in people on the streets ending up in emergency rooms and ending up in in-patient hospitalizations. And one night in the hospital is a whole month’s rent on most places.”

We have learned about many examples where the homeless are ignored, forced out of public spaces, and dehumanized. This campaign is a prime example of a positive way to help people out of homelessness. They are bringing communities together to raise funds and directly address the issue.

To review 60 Minutes article click here: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/100000-homes-housing-homeless-saves-money/

To look at ASR reports click here: http://www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/homeless/

The homeless are a demographic of people who are often misrepresented. Negative stereotypes about homelessness often mask the truth of their situations. The course readings describe the realities of being poor. Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed is an ethnography based on her fieldwork.  Ehrenreich steps into the shoes of the poor as she works a variety of low-wage jobs. She observes and interacts with her co-workers as she struggles to make ends meet. Her revelations about her co-workers allows for the reader to get a glimpse of the challenges they face. Enrenreich is in a position of privilege and is a ‘guest’ in this world, her observations are told through her voice. We get first hand stories, in the people’s own voices in Kenan Heise’s The Book of the Poor.

Americans are told that persistence and hard work will allow you to reach ‘the American Dream.’ However, in reality (as seen in each of these readings) there are bigger issues at play. Working hard does not automatically guarantee that you will have a ‘successful’ life. On the Invisible People website,  many of the people sharing their stories mentioned that ‘it can happen to anyone.’ Once you are in the lower class, it becomes extremely difficult to get back on your feet. Hunger and homelessness is a micro result of a macro problem. Poverty occurs because of our society’s structural failures rather than an individual’s failures. After an exercise in class where we were prompted to create a budget, it was made clear that there a few options given to this demographic of people who are struggling. Sometimes are forced in to the common negative stereotypes that we see because they have no other options. Homeless is often dismissed by many, but the issues surrounding this phenomenon are far more complex.