The Federal Government requires counties to do a Point In Time count of homeless people in their county. However, they do not provide funding to make these counts happen and they do not look into the results any more than seeing if it was simply completed or not. One question you may ask, how do they fund these counts if the federal government does not provide any funding? These counts are sponsored by non-profit organizations and some cities and counties contribute money. Another question that may occur, if the federal government is not taking these counts very seriously then why should the counties that are doing the counts take them seriously? Through the results of the PIT counts over the last decade or so there are trends that demonstrate which counties are counting just so they can check off the requirement and those who are actively counting to make sense of the data collected. There are often counties who are in denial about the number of homeless and they claim they have less than what they really do have. Then there are also some counties who collect more data beyond just if someone is homeless or not. They look into other demographics so that they can better understand why homelessness is a problem and what they can do to fix it. For example, cities with better social services attract homelessness. This is something worth looking in to because that would be an explanation of why a cities number of homeless is high.

There are multiple different methods that Applied Survey Research uses to count homeless, which include; street count, shelter and institution count, telephone survey, and homeless survey. With these different methods, PIT counts are not always accurate and it would be hard to compare two cities counts if they are using different methods.

PIT counts are important for counties to participate in but only if they are doing them accurately. With the right funding and the proper method of counting we could understand homelessness better.

http://www.appliedsurveyresearch.org/homeless/

After reading Deborah Connolly’s book Homeless Mothers I developed a better understanding of the jobs of social workers. This particular book was from the viewpoint of Connolly who did fieldwork as a social worker. Connolly worked at multiple organizations that housed homeless mothers and often their children. She came across many heart-wrenching stories of homeless mothers, their children, and their families.

To give these homeless mothers answers, suggestions and help is not simple and is not always possible. We can see from Connolly’s point of view that these jobs can take a toll on the social workers. Social workers are working closely with families who are trying to make better lives for themselves. Social workers are expected to have answers for all of these homeless people. In reality it is not always the social workers jobs to give these families a better life, it is up to the families to do that. However, these families are very unstable and they need guidance from the social workers.

I did not realize how hard it would be to have to hear these stories that were often hopeless. Many of the homeless women described in the book had no hope of making a better life for themselves. Sometimes social workers would have no solutions for these people. Even if there were solutions, often times the homeless mothers could not follow through with them because of the circumstances they were in.  It was particularly hard for Connolly when she got close to the character Kristy in the book. Connolly felt that she wanted to take Kristy and her children into her own care because there were not any better options for them. However, she was constantly reminded by her coworkers, “We are not here to save families- we are here to serve them” (Connolly 131). This saying was almost like their motto. Social work is not easy and they have to remember that they are doing what they can to serve these families. There is only so much the social workers can do to get the homeless into shelters; the rest is up to them. Social workers cannot be held accountable for saving these families.

After reading the book “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, I realized that it is close to impossible to live on a consistent minimum wage job. For many people this was not a surprise, but it was for me. I have always been told that everyone in America can be living the “American dream” with whatever job we choose. I was programmed to think that we could have whatever job we wanted here in America, we could even start our own business. Unfortunately, for most Americans this is not true. Throughout “Nickel and Dimed” I understood that America is full of inequality, especially in the work place. Ehrenreich joined the low-wage work force to see for herself that it is hard, if at all possible, to live off these wages. Ehrenreich writes, “No one ever said that you could work hard-harder even than you ever thought possible-and still find yourself sinking ever deeper into poverty and debt” (Ehrenreich 220). With Ehrenreich’s enter into the low-wage work force she saw for herself that hard work does not always pay off, especially in America. This book gives examples of low-wage workers and their constant struggles of everyday life. Many of these workers had no way of getting out of their low-wage jobs because they needed the small amount of money to pay for rent at an apartment or food for their families. It is important to understand the inequality of the low-wage workers in America so that we can try to make it better. This book helped me to realize that not everyone can live this so-called “American dream” because of the inequality in jobs in America.