All posts by Michelle

Homelessness and the Weather

About being poor, Homelessness, Poverty

For the past week or so I’ve been hearing fellow students and faculty talk about the casual subject of Southern California’s strange weather this winter and the fact that it doesn’t feel very wintery. Several people were talking about how they wished it would rain so they could wear their warmer clothes, or simply desired the presence of snow on the mountains for aesthetic or recreational value. At any other moment of my life, I would have viewed these desires as innocent and natural. However, given that we’ve been reading articles and pieces about homelessness and life on the streets, it dawned on me that those of us with a roof over our heads, the money to purchase warm clothes or hot foods, or a car to transport ourselves with, we have the privilege to want these things (however, the desire to have rain and colder weather does not exclude on the other hand cold weather for the sake of the environment and the prevention of drought).

This warmer weather is likely viewed as a blessing for those who have to wonder every day where they will find a place to sleep at night or a place to rest during the day. Unlike the rest of the US that is suffering from extreme cold weather, rain, flooding, hail, the West coast, while experiencing unusual warm weather, has been luckier for the homeless who may otherwise seek shelter by getting into prison for the winter.

As Kenan Heise explains in his book, The Book of the Poor, the combination of winter and poverty can be incredibly detrimental to the health of individuals living in poverty, if not potentially kill those who don’t have shelter or warmer clothing. These needs put pressure upon shelters and food banks that are already pressed for more supplies to give.

Rehab, Housing, Prison, and Dignity

Reflections on our Reading, Solutions to Homelessness, Solutions to Poverty

Stability derives primarily from having one’s basic needs being met: food, water, safety, and shelter. The most problematic and costly of these four is shelter.

The New York Times article “Program to End Homelessness Among Veterans Reaches a Milestone in Arizona” by Fernanda Santos deals with the question of whether drug or alcohol rehabilitation should come first, or if housing should come first in the path of creating “stability” for a person who was recently homeless or in poverty. Veterans, who served in the military whether as draftees or in more recent years as soldiers who volunteered, often have a difficult time finding work and a place to live. Many are disabled, whether physically or mentally, and as the Santos’ article argues, deserve better treatment than a life of instability from a lack of housing. This article also deals with the broader question: should there be a set of criteria for homeless and impoverished individuals that they must fulfill before receiving aid?

Some organizations, particularly religious ones, prefer offering rehab but fail to provide a sense of long term stability, as Kenan Heise argues in the chapter entitled “Drugs, Alcohol, and the Homeless” in his book The Book of the Poor. Religious organizations in particular place a moral obstacle in the path of the homeless, and most often, the idea that rehab to stability crumbles upon itself as organizations only provide rehab but fail at providing housing. As David Kemp states in this chapter during an interview with T.M., “…people will open up a lot better if you are not there directly trying to get them to stop using and that it is not a factor in what you are trying to do” (Heise, 37). Rather than behaving as a probational officer, organizations should focus on finding and/or creating affordable housing. Otherwise, rehab fails and/or individuals will turn to prison as a temporary shelter or place of stability.

In addition, the old path of rehab to stability is also the mindset of penal institutions, which house a large quantity of homeless individuals charged with the possession of drugs, not violent criminal behavior. Most  homeless individuals purposefully  land themselves into prison. Santos writes, “A 2009 analysis commissioned by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which handles the largest population of homeless veterans in the country, found that the monthly cost of housing and supportive services for one person was $605, while the public costs of a person living on the streets were roughly $2,900 a month.” The cost of housing a prisoner is significantly more than providing civilian housing in most states, tax dollars that could provide housing and improvement for communities.

Yet individuals land themselves in prison for shelter, regular meals, and will follow through the motions of rehab with the likelihood of falling back into old habits when out on the streets again. Both Heise and Santos argue that individuals, if separated from the source of their stress and other pressures, such as living on the streets, uncertainty about where one will sleep at night or find another meal, and the accessibility of drugs and alcohol, would thus be less likely to do drugs or drink alcohol or associate with those who do. By distancing themselves through having a place to live, studies show the use of drugs and alcohol decreases, thus decreasing likelihood of imprisonment.

This is further exemplified expertly through the Netflix original series Orange is the New Black in which Taystee, a black prisoner housed at a New York federal penitentiary where the show takes place, prefers living in the prison and is willing to forfeit her “freedoms” in order to return to prison because the outside world is too unstable. Inside the prison Taystee has a job at the prison’s library, regular meals, a bed, and friends. In the outside world she has no family, no friends, a probation officer that did not provide housing and a sense of compassion, and the real possibility of falling into poverty.

Rather than a confrontational approach, organizations should work toward providing the one thing homeless and impoverished individuals need and want: a home, security, and their own personal dignity in the process.