All posts by Deandra

Teaching Report

Uncategorized

I knew right away that when I decided to do my lesson plan in a Juvenile Hall, that I wasn’t going to teach the inmates issues about homelessness, but that I was going to increase their awareness about the issue of homelessness. This was because I knew that majority of this audience was either going to be homeless when they get out of jail or that they were already homeless before they got into jail. This was the exact reason why I knew this was going to be a teaching event where I would get the opportunity from learning from my audience as well.

I went into the hall with a presentation made on PowerPoint. I broke up each slide into different themes of homelessness. However, I first began this presentation by having everyone go around introducing themselves and then saying one word that makes them think of homelessness. Then we continued on to defining what homelessness is.

Then we moved on to discuss what the causes of homelessness are. I explained to them the differences between the two intersecting factors of homelessness which includes personal susceptibility and structural conditions. Next, we continued on to learning about how many homeless people there are in the United States. Our next slide was a discussion on how homeless individuals are counted and where these numbers come from. The final slide was a discussion on how we solve homelessness.The main programs that we discussed involved a twelve step recovery program for drug addicts and alcoholics, a dress for success program, a daily stress and anger management program, and finally a nutrition program. By concluding my presentation, I decided to show a YouTube video clip that was about a man who was pretending to be homeless. The video taper caught this man on camera, watching him ask people for money. The video taper followed this man home and knocked on his door and confronted him about the nice house he lives in, and the Mercedes he was driving home, and asked if he is lying about being homeless. This caused a great discussion between the incarcerated kids between whether or not they thought this was right or wrong. It ended up being a very good discussion

I was very pleased with how much participation I got from all of the kids throughout the entire presentation. I personally feel they really enjoyed it and I helped increase their knowledge on homelessness and I couldn’t be any happier with where and how I chose to do my teaching project. I felt that everything went smoothly during this presentation as I planned it to and this is something I would definitely do again

Non-profit Organizations

Organizations

Our class got the opportunity to have a Skype call with a specialist who works with a nonprofit organization in New Jersey. This company has been working for over 30 years since 1983! Their mission is to offer shelter, services, and supportive housing to homeless and low income people. They are a nonprofit affordable housing development in New Jersey. They have 85 beds in Morris County which is very large for this area. They have programs for families, single men, single women, and safe haven programs for the mentally ill. They also have transitional housing for families. It is next to a school and park for families which was created in 1996. It is in between affordable housing and shelters. Some will leave the shelter and come here to these houses to avoid the shelter. They are apartments but they refer to them as a place for participants in the program. People can stay up to 18 months but there are still programs you need to go to and curfews to follow. The Mount Kemble home is a property that is on the national and state historic register. It is well over 100 years old. It is a 19 room, rooming house for senior women who are in low income. They pay 30% of whatever their income is. They have a full time house manager but most of these women are coming here as a last resort. Their spouses may have died or they exhausted all of their savings and they only have social security to live off of. Another thing they try to do is bring in revenue resources to support the program, this way they don’t have to rely on the government or private donors. This is a furnishing solution which has been going for about a year and a half now. This type of program is something that we need in more states to help the cause of homelessness.

Non-profit: final internship report

Local organizations

My internship is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2009. They help “build confidence and promote self-sufficiency for homeless, runaway, and under served youth ages fourteen to twenty-four by providing trust, hope, support, and education”. Their mission is to be a “support system for these youth so that they may grow to be health, successful adults that exit street life”. Many of these youth are from by local communities and a lot of these teens attend the local high schools in Redlands, including Redlands East Valley High school, Redlands High school, and Citrus Valley High School. There will sometimes be a few that come all the way from San Bernardino or Colton. However, not too many because they have to provide their own transportation and with these teens many just walk from wherever they are. This program will provide bus passes but only to be used for school and they have to prove themselves that they are attending school with homework, assignments, etc. This program is used as a place for teens to come and hang out during the day. This is not a shelter for teens to stay at overnight but a community to be surrounded with support during the day. Because of their transition into the new facility, they are only open during Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday between the hours of 2:30pm to 6:30pm. This gives students an opportunity to have a place to hang out with others in the same situation after school. They can come here and work on homework together and build relationships all while getting a few items they may need. For example, the day I went to observe, it was raining and a girl needed a new pair of dry socks and she was thankful to know that the director just brought in donated clothes so she was able to receive a new pair of socks and even a new beanie! Snacks and hot chocolate was also provided until dinner was served. They always provide dinner when the facility is open and is usually served around 4:00pm. The dinner is always donated by another organization. Majority of the time, the food will be donated or prepared by churches in Redlands. The day I was there, it was a day for a Redlands church to provide dinner so at the church they will make home cooked food to give to the homeless teens. The shelter will have to go pick it up from the location but other than that the food has already been prepared and cooked. If it is another church’s time to donate (hence they all have set schedules when it is their time to provide dinner) and they may not have enough time to prep food, they will just order a bunch of pizzas or something easy to donate. I feel that this is a wonderful opportunity for teens all over the are.

By obtaining statistics from this nonproft, they recently surveyed 276 of the youth attendees: 29% were homeless and living on the streets, 34% were abused as youth children, 19% were in the foster care system, 37% have parents with drug or alcohol substance abuse problems, 76% were classified as low-income, 3,204 homeless children were registered in Kindergarten to 12th grade, and 1,414 homeless youth were registered in 7th-12th grade in the Redlands Unified School District in the 2010-2011 school year.

increasing awareness about homelessness

Uncategorized

This week I have spent time on building a workshop on increasing the awareness about homelessness in the United States. I have decided to teach my lesson in the San Bernardino Juvenile Hall to the incarcerated teens many whom have already experienced homelessness or will experience it when they get out of jail. My lesson plan will begin by having defining the definition of homelessness. The federal homeless definition is, people who are living in a place not meant for human habitation, in emergency shelter, in transitional housing, or are exiting an institution where they temporarily resided if they were in shelter or a place not meant for human habitation before entering the institution. There are to main intersecting factors in homelessness which includes personal susceptibility and structural personalities. Personal factors can include: alcohol and drug addictions, mental illness, problem personalities, disabilities, injuries, and family tragedies. Structural conditions include, housing loss, job market changes, hospital closures, drug epidemics, lowered social support. In 2013, PIT (point in time) counts showed that 610,042 people were homeless in the US. Nearly 2/3 of people counted (394,698) were living in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs. 215,344 were counted in unsheltered locations. Since 2007, Pit counts showed a 9% decrease in homelessness (61,846 people). Unsheltered – lowered by 23% (65,143 people) and increased shelter by 1% (3,297 people). California is home to 22% of the nation’s homeless population. To understand where these counts come from and how society counts all the homeless people is done by different methods of methodology for different communities. One example is when a team of 3 goes out early in the morning before sunrise and has a map of the area that they are supposed to cover. 1 is the driver, 1 is the recorder, and 1 is the looker. They drive around counting there best looking under bridges, inside coffee shops, etc. some counts may be counted by sheriffs or city police such as in more difficult places like San Francisco on the golden gate bridge.

Preparing Workers for the Jobs of Tomorrow

Organizations

An example of an organization that Kenan Heise holds up to in his book “The Book of the Poor: Who they are, What they say, and How to end their poverty” is the Chamber of Commerce. A chamber of Commerce is a type of organization whose main goal is to increase the interests of businesses. Heise wrote about this in Chapter 46 during his thirds section called “Preparing Workers for the Jobs of Tomorrow”. Heise discusses how he wants to make sure that all workers are capable of getting the higher training or education that homeless individuals need in order to have access to “middle-skill” jobs that will allow them to pay for the family with an accurate wage.

One of the organizations Heise listed in this chapter, was the Chamber of Commerce that is located in Los Angeles. By using the “Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce website” (http://www.lachamber.com/webpage-directory/about/about-aboutchamber/), they are said to the voice of business in their region. Their mission is “By being the voice of business, helping its members grow and promoting collaboration, the Los Angeles Area of Chamber of Commerce seeks full prosperity for the Los Angeles region”.

Stats:

The L.A. Area Chamber represents:

  • over 1,600 members
  • over 650,000 employees
  • small, medium, and large sized companies
  • businesses from more than 35 industry sectors
  • businesses from across Los Angeles County

Current issues the Chamber of Commerce is working on:

  • Education
  • Energy and Water Sustainability
  • Global Initiatives- Free and Fair Trade
  • Health Care
  • Homelessness
  • Jobs and Business Growth
  • Land Use, Housing, and Construction
  • Transportation and Goods Movement

The Chamber of Commerce helps create jobs, a thriving economy, and protect the current future welfare of the greater Los Angeles Area. One of their current main issues is on reducing homelessness since Los Angeles has more than 88,000 homeless individuals. Currently, the Chamber of Commerce has decided to work with the United Way of Greater Los Angeles to build the Los Angeles Business Leaders Task Force for Homelessness. They are working on finding the best outreach, housing plan, and action plan to reduce homelessness. Finding a better Los Angeles is the Chamber of Commerce’s business.

Medicalizing Homelessness

Solutions to Hunger

In Chapter two of the book called “Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance” written by Vincent Lyon Callo is about medicalizing homelessness which basically means to have the production of self-blame and self-governing homeless shelters. It talks about haveing the practice over self-control and following routine practices in the shelter to help detect, diagnose, and treat disorders that the homeless people have. Reasons that were listed as to why these homeless people are here are due to substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, eviction, loss of income, being new to the area, or being chronically homeless. So a lot of homeless people would come into this shelter not knowing why or how they became homeless. But the staff and clients and this shelter would work together to help the clients find out and learn what their problem is and how to solve it. For example, there was one lady in this chapter who said. “I have always worked and have no trouble finding work. It’s finding work that pays enough to live on that’s hard” (Lyon Callo).  The staff will also spend all of their time monitoring the entire house and all the guests. Any small action that a client shows can help explain what type of problem they may have. For example, they explained how even a client just watching television can show they have depression in their life. The key for many of these individuals is to resolve their homelessness through self-reform. As, one of Lyon Callo’s goal in this book “was to help produce more talk, more reflection, and possibly new understandings and practices to emerge through dialogue about the effects of routine practices (Lyon Callo, pg. 23).”

Homelessness in itself

Government programs

Nothing has really changed since the 1790s in Homelessness. You see all the same arguments that are going on today and ideological justifications now are the same as it was in 1790 including the laissez faire economics and political economy of possessive individualism. We have had a series of economic shifts that parallels other eras. There have been shifts in the social contract and decline of labor unions. This world has less effective states. There has been increasing inequality and loss of social safety net and ideological use of foreign threat. Lyon Callo is interested in what people think and why they see the world in particular ways. The key concept is discourses which roughly speaking ways that help people conceive social issues as reflected in their talk. Ways that will shape your career is your education, the way you present yourself, having and address, and most importantly, what jobs are available which name none of us have control over.  There are two major Homeless Aid Acts that came out including the McKinney Act and the Hearth Act. The McKinney Act came out in 1987 and had fifteen different programs. Shelter plus care programs, single room occupancy programs, supportive housing programs, emergency shelter grant programs, etx. There was also agriculture, education, labor, and HUD programs expanded to homeless. The Hearth Act which came out in 2009 consolidated and renewed several McKinney programs which included the $1.5 billion for new housing assistance, homeless prevention and rapid re-housing program (HPRP), and structure as grants to states and local agencies and part of 2009 stimulus package.

500 word intern summary

Local organizations

My internship has helped change lives for thirty years and their motto is “Be part of the change”. In a program setting, homeless people can come here to prepare themselves for a better future who choose growth and change. This internship has a few different help options on who can come into this program. The main two options that are offered here are a two week emergency shelter program and an extended ninety day emergency temporary shelter program.

This internship focuses much of its emphasis on strengthening the homeless individual through support program that they offer at the shelter which includes on sit groups and classes. They offers a handful of different programs that are an ongoing basis. Beginning with the department of Agriculture nutrition program, which has been certified from the University of California Riverside. This is a program that is devoted to improving the quality and provisions of food to these individuals. They also offer a twelve step recovery program, which has an on-site and outside meeting attendance required. This is a twelve step recovery program that has helped many people stop the use of alcohol and drugs. Another program they had was “Dress for success for all ages”. This program is designed to help these individuals transition from unemployment to working many challenges, from understanding corporate culture to handling personal finances, often without any support systems in place to help them navigate this difficult change. This program provides information that will help these individuals unfamiliar with the workplace continue to develop skills and advance in their careers. Another program they had was on positive correction techniques for dealing with daily stress and anger. This helps teach you on how managing stress is all about taking charge of your thoughts, emotions, schedule, and the way you deal with problems. This is not only a life skill that homeless individuals can learn but something that everyone can learn.

Homelessness is a problem all over the world. There may not be a cause to homelessness but there certainly are ways to help those out in need. Programs, initiatives, and support can only do so much, but this help is helping those get back on their feet. As we have learned through our class and statistics that homelessness is a large systematic problem rather than an individual problem. Shelters like my internship are perfect opportunities to help those that are trying to change their lives for the good. These shelters can only really help those who actually want the help, just like the twelve step program. I could tell through the few individuals at this shelter that they all wanted the help to change their lives. They had dedication and motivation in themselves to see a better future. As I have seen, these individuals have already improved their life since the style they used to live in. They have started the path to a better future.

History on Homelessness

Uncategorized

Reading the book “Down and Out, On the Road” by Kenneth Kusmer has shown me how far back homelessness goes in America. This book covers the entire period from the colonial era to the late twentieth century. You learn through this book that homelessness has been present in America for over two hundred years! To begin with the fact that a lot of these homeless people are immigrants however, there is a lot of diversity and global immigration. All of these homeless people can include disabled, mentally ill, orphans, and even freed blacks. It is hard to think back to the day when just steamboats were being invented and there was still homelessness going on. Through Kusmer’s text, you get a better understanding of how people become homeless and how charities and public authorities deal with this problem of being homeless. You even learn about all the diverse ways that homeless people deal with in class, ethnic, and racial groups. It was interesting to learn during the Industrial Revolution it was a major turning point for everyone in human history. During this time, three main types of transportation were produced which indluded waterways with steamboats, roads, and railroads. However, they were more likely to travel on foot due to the lack of safety on trains, the cost of steamboats, and hostility. It is depressing to think that at such a big time when advancements in technology are first being made but so many people never had the opportunity to use these advancements in their everyday life due to their homelessness. This time was when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport, and technology changed.

Applied Research Survey

Uncategorized

The Hearth act was passed in 2009 but not implemented until 2013.  The Hearth act looks at how the population can be broken down into sub-populations. I also learned through this Skype session that if you want good data, you have to pay for it. Methodology is different for all communities. A team of three goes out early in the morning before sunrise and has a map of the area that they are supposed to cover; one being a driver, one being the recorder, and one being the looker. They drive around counting their best looking under bridges, inside coffee shops, etc. Some counts may be counted by sheriffs or city police in more difficult places like in San Francisco on the Golden Gate Bridge. Learning all of this information has showed me that our society takes importance to our homelessness. These facts really show you how much consideration our society should be taking for the homelessness. Such as in California let alone, “there are 45,554 homeless people that are sheltered which makes up 33% of California. While there are 91,272 unsheltered homeless people which make up 67% of California” (Samantha Green).