Because I enjoy approaching people in public and asking them questions, I decided to “quiz” fellow students around campus with questions pertaining to homelessness. Said questions are listed below (the correct answers to questions 1-6 are shown in bold):
1. Out of all the cities in San Bernardino County, Redlands had the ______ amount of homeless people in 2017.
Highest
Second highest
Third highest
Second least
Least
2. The two factors that are mostly responsible for the rise of homelessness are:
Drug addiction and decreasing levels of motivation
Mental illness and increases in poverty
A shortage of affordable housing and increases in poverty
The erosion of family ties and a shortage of affordable housing
Lack of health insurance and student debt
3. The average life expectancy among homeless people compared to that of non-homeless people is….
about the same
about 5 years longer
about 10 years shorter
about 30 years shorter
about 45 years shorter
4. About ________ youth are homeless on any given night, and about _______ of them are LGBTQ.
100,000; 20%
750,000,000; 30%
1 million; 35%
D. 1.3 million; 40%
E. 1.8 million; 50%
5. African-Americans make up about 12.5% of the general population. They comprise about ______ of the national homeless population.
12.5%
10%
18%
30%
40%
6. There are about 9,800,000 people living in LA County. How many of them are homeless? Give your best guess. (around 57,000 is the answer, that is, according to counts)
7. What do you think is the definition of “homeless?”
8. If you had $100,000,000 to help address homelessness, what would you do with it? (Questions 7 and 8 are obviously subjective and have no “correct” answers, however I would say that there are “more correct” responses to them.)
Upon approaching people, I would ask them politely, albeit confidently, if they wanted to participate in a quiz about homelessness, and that they would be placed in a raffle to win either some candy, a book about homelessness, or an exclusive discussion about homelessness facilitated by me should they choose to participate. If an individual agreed to participate, I would ask them one question at a time, wait for them to answer, and then tell them whether or not they were right or wrong immediately after their response.
I conducted the raffle process by assigning every participant a number, which was very easy because I wrote down every participant’s name and number after they took my quiz. I then used a random number generating app to select six “winning” participants: one to be awarded with candy, another with a book, and four others with a discussion.
I have so far contacted every “winner,” and have already facilitated the discussion. Thinking that people wouldn’t want to stay for long since we are in the heat of pre-finals week, I told those that “won” the discussion that they were only expected to stay for about 20 minutes or so. Boy, did I underestimate their generosity with time! We talked about the theories posed by Willse in The Value of Homelessness, the notion of attributing homelessness to situations vs. dispositions, structural changes in the job market, and the debate concerning whether change should come from the federal vs. the local level for about and hour and a half.
My teaching project has yet to conclude since I still need to give the candy and the book on homelessness to their respective recipients. But does the process of teaching and learning ever conclude?

Although my original plans for my teaching project unfortunately fell through, I was able to utilize one of my other classes as the subject of my project. As a double major in SOAN and Political Science, I try to take as many classes that can overlap in content as I can. The class I presented to is certainly one of those courses: SOAN-221, Rethinking Politics with Professor Coles. The class has been focused on processes and institutions of power as well as containing themes of governance and human rights. And in the class, we always come back ideas of hegemony discussed mainly by Antonio Gramsci. For our end of the year presentations, we were given the opportunity to expand on some current political issues, and evaluate how it connects to matters of hegemony, power, and governance. The title of my presentation was “Undercounting America’s Homeless Population.” This was one of my favorite topics from our Hunger and Homelessness class this semester, and it seemed like the perfect representation of a marginalized population, daily affected by social and political institutions of power and governance out of their control. The presentation was in a rotating poster format, where 1/3 of the class would present and the other 2/3 of the class would walk around the classroom, observing and asking questions of the presenters. The only problem I identified with this was the lack of time each presenter had. I definitely felt rushed to explain all of my main points while also leaving time for people to inquire as to the more interesting or quizzical parts of my presentation. Nevertheless, I felt incredibly comfortable and confident sharing all of my knowledge about homeless counts. My classmates were very intrigued by the topic and were shocked to hear that this is such a large issue across the country. They were also very understanding of how all of the different aspects of the problem interconnect and create incredibly negative results for homeless individuals. They asked questions about the role of government, both federal and local in intentionally or unintentionally undercounting the homeless. They also commented on how they had never heard of this phenomenon before, and how they hoped people would become more aware of it. It was very rewarding to know that people moved on from my poster with some new, valuable information. This was my intention with the project, to make people more aware of a problem that is sometime hidden from view. I think I was able to present this in a way that was not overwhelming, but was also was informational enough to stick with people beyond the one class period. This project also showed me how much I have learned about homelessness this semester, especially with regard to homeless counts.

For my teaching project I decided to skype my family and talk to them about some of the root causes of homelessness. I was originally going to a report on Redlands/ San Bernardino area. I was going to talk about the area specific problems and policy. Then I changed my mind because I thought about my audience better. My dad is a politically engaged person and I thought it would be more likely to be a meaningful discussion with him if we talked about government root causes of homelessness. So I took information we got in our readings, discussions, and during class and made a verbal presentation ment to get him engaged. My mom is an occupational therapist and has worked with a variety of jobs, the majority having clients with different mental and physical disabilities. Many of her jobs have been at schools with kids who come from low-income families. I also made sure to talk about mental illness and addiction as susceptibility factors in homelessness because I knew that would catch her attention and she would have more things to say. As I suspected my dad would always flip the argument on me- for example when I was talking about Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 and how it reached less people, he talked about how that was intentional, the program existed to motivate people to get back into jobs because you were only able to get assistance if you were employed or taking steps in your education to reach that.He talked about how if you were not able to find a job the government would give you one. I thought there was definitely some merit to his point. But I responded by explaining that homelessness need more help than that to actually fix the problem. There are other factors that could prevent someone from participating in this program like mental illness, transportation, family circumstances, location, and following a bunch of rules and regulations is not always the best route to go.

If I could do this project again I would change some of the details in the way that I presented my information. I think that I was very used to our classroom setting where we have the background knowledge to automatically be sympathetic to situations. I think that I started the discussion with some very strong opinions and it was contant heavy. If I started with some background knowledge first I think it may have gone slightly smoother. Overall I enjoyed our conversation. I think it’s important to have these discussions with family even when it gets difficult. The disagreements are valuable because we will never make progress just preaching to the choir. I learned that I need to look at my arguments closer and take my opinions out a little and incorporate a more whole explanation of what I’m trying to say. My dad had many points that he was able to counter mine with because I failed to look at the whole picture. For example, Clinton’s plan, how globalization in many ways is a good thing, and the flaws of unions. While simple, I believe the discussion was successful in making people who don’t normally have to think about homelessness pause and get a new perspective, which was my goal.

Homelessness often receives a negative connotation when you talking about the community amongst peers, friends, and family.  Most lack the compassionate nature when it comes to the community and forget that they are human too.  For this teaching project, I teamed up with Madisun to explore the perspectives and resources that our friends have of the homeless community.  To do this we thought we would go to our sorority and explore their views and what resources they believed were available to the homeless community.  First, we thought we would go to the sorority house or do it before a meeting but then we realized that the library would be a better place.  We are continuously running into people and it gave us the flexibility to do it with not only our sorority but our other friends who would also be walking through.  We chose to focus on this aspect of the course because a majority of people have surface views what the homeless community is and it is questionable whether or not they know of resources that may be available to them.  I went into this thinking that people would have negative views and know little about the resources that are available to the community.  To do this project we presented our audience with a powerpoint and wrote what they viewed and thought onto the slide.  Some of the views that were shared include: dirty, drunk, and crazy.  After these views were shared we went into describing the three different types of homeless: chronic, transitional, and episodic.  Next, we asked what they resources they thought were available.  Some thought food drives, government services, and churches.  We then described a couple of resources that are available to the community.  We spoke on the 2-1-1 hotline, HOPE cops, and a number of organizations that treat the diversity within the homeless community. At the end of the lesson, we asked some takeaways or what they learned from our teaching lesson.  For the types of homelessness, people walked away with realizing that there is a diversity within the community.  They were able to see the different ways in which the homeless community can be.  They also realized that they tend to generalize the community into one specific category. We were able to discuss the different kinds of people that tend to be homeless. Whether they were families, veterans, or single parents.  When we discussed resources they asked whether or not the HOPE cops were actually helpful for the community.  I brought up the fact that the people often have to be willing to change but it is not a 100% thing.  After this discussion, they realized that they were helpful but understand that it does not always work.  Through this, they also gained an understanding that no one really likes to be told what to do.  On the 2-1-1 hotline, they did not realize that the hotline even existed. With this, they see that if they come across someone in need they would know what to do. 

I decided to research the stats and causes of homelessness for veterans and teach it to my family. I wanted to see who homeless veterans were, and some of the different reasons, beyond the causes of general homelessness, that causes homelessness in the veteran population. I have an interest in the topic because I hope to join the military after college, specifically in trauma care field, and the people I may be interacting with or helping could end up homeless because of any injuries they may sustain, mental disorders, or issues with the system that makes it challenging for them to find employment once they return to the civilian world. I hoped to accomplish learning something myself in my research, but also, I hoped that I could teach my family something about homelessness in general and about veteran homelessness specifically and the challenges that come with the issues they face when returning from war. I used aspects of the course material when describing some of the general causes of homelessness such as lack of affordable housing and lack of a livable minimum wage. Within the stats on veteran homelessness I also included some stats on the general homeless population for comparison. I chose these specific aspects of the course material because I did not believe that my family is aware of the more deep-rooted systemic issues that cause homelessness. It was also relevant information to go over before talking about some of the stats and causes of homelessness among the veteran population. Overall the teaching effort was a success in my eyes. It was definitely outside of my comfort zone, which I suspect is the point, but my family was receptive to the information and polite in their questions and observations. I presented a PowerPoint with information I had researched and taken from the course and that format worked well, especially over Skype where I feel the visual aid helped keep me on topic and allowed my family to focus on the information I was presenting. I first asked them a couple questions to understand what their personal ideas on homelessness were which I don’t feel went very well. I left the questions to broad and somewhat generic and so I got broad and generic responses. At the end I asked if they had any questions which sparked a much larger discussion than I was expecting and was somewhat gratifying to know they had an interest in the topic beyond just helping me with an assignment. This project was a stretch for me; I dislike presenting to people because I always get incredibly nervous. Overall though I feel, ultimately it was a good experience to have. It was gratifying as well to know my family had an interest in the topic of homelessness and veteran homelessness because I was unsure how they would receive it but they were willing and able to hold an in depth discussion afterwards which I appreciated.

For my teaching project I wrote an article to be published in the student led newspaper, the Redlands Bulldog. Entitled “We Should All Be Paying Attention to the Homeless in L.A.” The purpose of my project had several facets. I first, wanted to teach people about the ways in which language frames social issues. Language is an integral way in which our society constructs social issues, and, more importantly, language limits and defines the parameters of what solutions are permitted for those social issues. Dehumanizing language is responsible for the leaf blower approach we see so commonly undertaken by municipal and county governments. To underline this point I included a report on the displacement of 700 homeless individuals from Orange County. Therefore, my analysis of language also included a critique of policy response.
Second, I wanted to show others that homelessness is not a consequence of individual failure. The construction of American Society, predicated on neoliberal ideology has created the condition of homelessness. I included a report linking rising rents to the number of people living on the street. Further, it was important to me to link identity, as well as class, to the reality faced by those living on the street. There are racial elements as well as elements that disproportionately affect members of the LGBTQ+ community.
I chose to public in the Bulldog for a few reasons. Most important is that we are at an “elite” institution. College students and faculty are no doubt part of the socioeconomic elite in this nations and often times institutions such as this university can cause people to lose touch with the real lives of many Americans. I included statistics, data, and structural analysis because I thought that to be the sort of content that may influence the minds of the intellectually elite.
Publishing my teaching project was limiting in that I received nominal face-to-face response to my piece. Upon posting about my article on my Facebook I accumulated 18 responses, which was nice to know that so many people had indeed read my writing. In person I had a few conversations about it, and I received a few first bumps in passing.
My article did succeed in stimulating conversation among a few students on campus. I had one particular interaction with a Redlands junior who had just been having a similar conversation about language as framing social issues and policy responses with a visiting professor. However, to the extent of my knowledge, my article failed to change any opinions. I presume as much because I received no push back or negative response concerning what I had written.
Therefore, if I were to do this project again I would definitely seek dissention. I know several conservatives on campus who would have disagreed with my opinions very much. Actively seeking a response from an organization such as the Young Republicans club could have gone a long way to help me understand how my project fits into the larger discussions on inequality poverty and neoliberal governance happening on this campus and throughout the United States. Additionally, I wish I could have recruited several faculty members to poll their students on my work. The piece was short for a reason.

Over the course of this semester, my views on the homeless community have been significantly widened and I have become a more empathetic person. Growing up in San Bernardino, homeless encounters were a normal thing and I brushed them off without a second thought. Now, I think to myself “this person has a story you don’t know about” with every homeless individual I see. The last time I was walking the streets of Skid Row in LA was about 2 months ago, and I had a new perspective towards the people on the street. I had so much respect for them and took in the diversity around me, while also being saddened because I now know about their displacement and how difficult it is. Being immersed in a social problems makes it go to your heart more, so teaching/showing people these situations can make an impact. I didn’t have someone telling me about homeless life and homeless people in high school, other than they were lazy and would only use any money I gave them to feed an addiction. Kids are impressionable, and need to be told more than one perspective. So for my teaching project, I went to Yucaipa High School and overviewed the 5 main questions we answered over the semester with 2 AP Human Geography classes. I told them alternative reasons to homelessness outside substance abuse, what organizations are doing to help, and that it could happen to anyone. The lesson I hope they took home was do not be quick to judge and do not slander those who need some help. The homeless community faces enough shame, but with every child we can teach to be more tolerant and accepting, the better we can treat one another.

As my entire college career is winding down this week, I cannot help but reflect on this semester and acknowledge the moments in class that were most outstanding. Going into this class, I felt anxious to learn about homelessness. I knew that the conversations I was overhearing from family members about homeless people were wrong, but I didn’t know how to properly connect them. I mean, what do you really say when your outspoken uncle refers to all homeless people in Seattle as lazy, ungrateful people? Now I know that I have a multitude of responses lined up for the next time this conversation unfolds. Some of our most powerful moments in the class were when we all acknowledged that we need to humanize homelessness, but that doing just that won’t solve anything. Using our conversation from last class and reflecting on it, I think it’s important to keep in our minds that you can help people who are struggling and also fight against the structures that are making them struggle, all at the same time. Just because I want to “put band-aids on people” doesn’t mean I’m contributing to the same issue. I’m all about empathy and understanding and I think I will use those two traits moving forward when I continue to learn about homelessness and speak about homelessness with others. Breaking stereotypes and stigmas is one way that we can all start to change the conversation. While it’s not us fighting to change policy, it is a step in the right direction. I’m really grateful to have taken this class and to have learned so much in just a few short weeks!

Orange County’s plan to house the homeless is collapsing left and right. One plan to house the homeless in a central park in Huntington Beach was roundly rejected merely two days after it was proposed. Citizens cited fears of crime and of economic repercussions and homeless proliferation lowered market values for properties. All this despite the fact that a homeless youth shelter has operated in the park for over a decade with no problem. Now Irvine and Laguna Beach have reacted similarly and backed out of their own shelter plans. As the county flounders interesting developments will come from the US District Court Judge who ruled that Orange County must find housing for these people.
Municipal and local reaction is typical I think and has to be expected. I just don’t understand what the county thought it was getting out of displacing hundreds of homeless folk. Maybe they thought no one would notice as those without homes were forced to leave and relocate elsewhere. if so, then they definitely were not expecting a judicial injunction on the issue. Perhaps the county thought that local governments and residence would acquiesce to new homeless shelters in their home towns. Regardless, this is really an issue that the county brought upon themselves. To this day I am unsure just why the county of Orange felt the need to forcibly displace them in the first place. Additionally, I wonder what people in Orange County will say as the tax payers are expected to foot what is no doubt an expensive bill to house hundreds of homeless folk in motels. Overall, the issue might seem comical, if not entirely frustrating.

My personal favorite part of last week was when we got to have a discussion on how we can best help others while protecting ourselves. As I talked about in our discussion, when I was volunteering in Juvenile Hall I was really struggling in the beginning to connect with my first class. I took this as a sign that it was a personal flaw of mine. I thought that maybe I wasn’t listening to them, or doing a good job presenting myself as someone they could talk too, or that the worlds we came from were so different that I wouldn’t be able to make a difference. But, when they filled out their evaluations of us there were tons of comments on how they appreciated us coming in and liked talking to us. It made me realize that not all progress can be seen, and just because it isn’t tangible to you doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. I’m not positive what direction my career will take me, and I will probably end up doing multiple things, but one of this things I want to do is directly help and interact with people who are struggling. It was a really helpful food for thought about my own abilities to manage my own emotions working in the social work (or similar) fields.