As I am reflecting on the semester, I cannot help but realize what this class has forced me to do. Not only has this course pushed me to desire volunteering and learning more about the homelessness issue at hand, the course positively challenged me to face my inner struggles with public speaking. Throughout this course, I have become more aware of the homeless population. Homelessness has not dramatically increased within the past four months, the course realistically made me more aware of the issue and therefore my eyes were more vulnerable to visualizing the homeless population.

One key topic from this course was the idea of a solution to homelessness. I have realized there is no one solution that will stop and ultimately help society by obtaining equality, affordable housing, and equal wage opportunities. Every individual had there own personal opinion regarding the homeless population, thus proving one solution is not possible to helping the issue. Multiple things must be done in order for  society to change their aspects, opinions, and attitudes towards the homeless community. For example, I have been telling people about my volunteer opportunities at a shelter that remains unknown. The majority of the people whom I inform about my volunteer experiences, reply with some type of amusement and thankful of my “great duties”, but in reality, what makes me giving back to my community such an amazing thing? Should helping other individuals and your community be so rare and unexpected of all living citizens?  This concept truly set in when I was realizing how individual people do not have to crucify people of the homeless community in order to be clueless as to why/how we can help. There are citizens who see the homelessness issue and desire to make an actual change, people who see the issue but think they are not “big” enough to make actual changes, and those whom choose to be clueless about the issue. I plan to explore furthermore into the logistics of homeless shelter agencies and policies for the homeless community.

While working on my teaching project in preparation for presenting it to my Rethinking Politics class this week, I realized how much I really have learned about homelessness in America this semester. My presentation is about undercounting homeless populations, which is certainly an area we have covered a lot in class, but I have been able to find new and interesting information as well. After putting more work into this topic, I really do think its one of the largest problems facing the homeless population. If they are being undercounted, then they are more likely to have fewer services provided to them. And if cities are being given smaller pools of funds from HUD because of their slim counts, then they are not able to make as many city or county wide changes to work towards eliminating homelessness. From my research for the project, more than anything I have found that the history of homeless counts have been inconsistent and tumultuous, and that no matter how successful a count may seem, there are still negative social and political implications.  This was especially apparent when we Skyped with Point-in-Time experts, who were able to identify that despite the best of intentions, there are still modes of manipulation that find their way into the mix. I’m hoping this is a political and social issue many of my classmates in the other class are not aware of, so that they will have a lot to learn!

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.
Given the definition above, do you all think it is safe to say that the current phenomenon of homelessness in America is more or less an example of genocide? I discussed this notion with my friend yesterday and am unsure about my opinion of it. According to the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, homeless people are three times more likely than their non-homeless counterparts to die at any moment, and typically have life spans that are 30 years shorter than “average.” 831 Los Angeles County homeless people died during 2017, an 81.5% increase since 2013. There is obviously a strong correlation between homelessness and death, but I will provide a caveat: debilitating mental illness among homeless people may be a confounding variable in this correlative relationship. “…Individuals with co-occurring mental illness and homelessness, arguably the County’s most vulnerable populations, may account disportionately for the increased death rates,” said Dr. Jonathan Sherin of the LA County Department of Mental Health, quoted from the Los Angeles Daily News (Abram).
Now, are the deaths of homeless people due to deliberate action? From what we’ve learned in class, homeless people and people living in poverty experience very slow, extended deaths, largely caused by difficult labor and long work hours, malnutrition, stress, etc. These problems are arguably byproducts of capitalism and inequality. One could say that everyone is dying a very slow, extended death, but I think we could make the case that homeless people’s’ life spans are directly affected by such problems. (That is in contrast to most of us in this class, who are dying slow, long deaths simply because we are mortal.)
Even if it is not technically an example of a genocide, using the word “genocide” to describe homelessness as a national issue is justified if doing so expresses the severity of homelessness and its widespread harm, in my opinion. What do you all think? Do you agree? Disagree?

                                                                              Sources
Abram, Susan. “More of LA County’s Homeless Are Dying. Here’s Why.” Los Angeles Daily
News, 17 Jan. 2018,
www.dailynews.com/2018/01/17/more-of-la-countys-homeless-are-dying-heres-why/
“The Hard, Cold Facts About the Deaths of Homeless People.” Nhchc.org, www.nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/HardColdFacts.pdf.

This past week I had the opportunity to eat dinner with Rev. Dr. Miguel De La Torre who was on campus speaking for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s 50th anniversary of his assassination. During dinner he had some words regarding injustices and issues in the world such as immigration and religion. He described a hopelessness that I translated as a kind of hopelessness due to structures set in place that produce conditions that are only getting worse and worse as the years go by. Issues like housing are in the conversation and it made me reflect on points made in class regarding hunger and homelessness in America.

What I began to think about were constraints put on organizations who are constantly trying to fight and end hunger, poverty, homelessness, etc in their own communities. Constraints can include things like laws enforcing fines to organizations that have a history of giving meals to the community or have done the service before. Other constraints include rules and regulations, limited funding, and interference from state or federal governments while attempting to provide a service. In addition to this I started to think about organizations on a local level and how there are multiple organizations providing a variety of services in one place. Yes, this makes sense as it is difficult for one organization to provide a broad area of expertise in every place that displays a need, but organizations most times can be individual in the sense of lack of communication to other organizations. Referral and follow up programs are implemented into some organizations., but I think it may work in favor of every service if they communicate and work together against these larger constraints.

This week has been very interesting. I loved hearing all the oral reports on the different organizations the class was interning at. It was very  rewarding as a whole to hear what the class thought was effective and what wasn’t. Hearing all the different positives and negatives makes me want to try to come together and find some solutions to these issues. One that really made me uneasy was one of the Youth shelters get tons of can donations yet they still go out and buy groceries to make meals when they could be planning meals based off what they have in their pantry. The organization is wasting money that could be used elsewhere. If they are not going to use the food they are donated they should donate it to a organization that will before the food expires. I know for a fact if they donated it to Youth Hope it would be gone so fast. Food never stays on those shelves. The youth are so grateful when they get any food canned or not. It is a matter if you make meals according to what you have using available resources.

At first, I had no idea what to do for my Teaching Project. I enjoy doing presentations, but did not know who to present to. Finally, I decided to do a PowerPoint presentation to my EDUG 331 Child Development class last Wednesday. My topic was “Homeless Children and Youth in America.” My audience was my Child Development class and my professor. My purpose was to find a younger audience to inform them of issues among the homeless youth and share resources within this area. Most of the students in my class are interested in becoming educators and should be aware of this issue. I used information from the book “Braving the Streets,” the book “Homeless Mothers,” my Data Exercise 2 of Homeless Counts, and a number of other resources. In the beginning, my presentation included: who are the homeless, statistics, causes, how it affects their development, and a short video. These young people are sometimes referred to as “unaccompanied” youth. One difficulty was that the video took a long time to load. The short video discussed the homeless youth living in L.A. Most of them stated how they ended up there and what they feared the most about being homeless. I believe it is important to recognize that not all stories and situations are the same. It is different for every family or child. Youth homelessness is on the rise in the United States. According to the National Center on Family Homelessness, it is almost 2 million. I also touched on homeless counts and how the problem with youth is that they are most often undercounted. Next, I included some agencies and resources in the Redlands area. These were the Youth Hope Foundation, Our House, and the Redlands Family Service Association, which I learned about from our internship presentations. I added in a section about the Homeless Outreach team of the San Bernardino County Sheriffs (HOPE) who say to call 211 if a homeless related issue. At the end, I added in a section for questions, comments, and concerns.

Thankfully, the class was very engaged and I felt like they were actually paying attention.  I believe this was a good audience to share this issue with. My professor commented and said that she enjoyed that I shared agencies and resources in the Redlands area. She also encouraged all of us to get involved in these youth agencies, especially because she believes that the youth may feel more comfortable opening up with younger people, like us. I agreed. I was glad to have a few students comment. One student discussed how he had participated in the San Bernardino Homeless Count last year. When the students finished with their comments, my professor asked the class if we were surprised at all by the large number of homeless youth. Some students said yes, but most were not surprised. I had my friend film the presentation. After class, my professor thanked me for the presentation. I was glad that I had the Child Development class and the supportive professor to share what I had learned about homelessness.

This week,  we got to hear from our fellow peers once again about the internships they have taken up this semester. They all range from dealing with adults to the homeless youth and each person has had a difference experience, even if they were at the same location as someone else. Overall, it is interesting to hear what people have to say about their organizations and what they have learned from them throughout their time there. This time for our presentations we included a piece about evaluating the organization as a whole. So this meant that we included what we thought they were doing well, but also what we thought could be improved on, whether or not it was in their control, we still wanted to give a general idea of how we think the organization could potentially function better. Not that is was necessarily nice to hear that everyone faced some sort of challenge or at least noticed one with their organization, but it was comforting to know that not every place is perfect and is still constantly striving to do better. We heard from organizations that have been around for over a hundred years and from some that have only been around for less than a year. With everyone having such a wide range of internships that have been around for different time periods it really allowed us to see what works and what doesn’t work. One of the most common themes that I found within the organizations that all have a lack of funding. Money is what allows these organizations to function and provide resources and programs to their clients, but without they are unable to. It is becoming harder and harder now to receive funds and grants for these types of organizations, but the few that do I only hope they put the money toward good use as I am sure they will.

After last weeks class, I cannot stop thinking about whether shelters and agencies are actually helping the homelessness issue at hand or if we are only “beautifying” these issues. At first, I thought tiny houses were a great way to help create affordable housing while also reducing human footprint on the planet, but after consideration, the idea of beautifying these issues to fit public standards starting setting in my mind. Are tiny houses such a great option because it distracts the public eye from visually seeing tents or homeless camps on the streets? The idea of tiny houses was to create radically smaller homes dedicated to simplicity for affordable housing opportunities. The outside of the house can appear to fit the standards of typical housing, but the inside is not comfortable or can even fit the normal necessities by humans.

Tiny houses are what made me begin thinking about the idea of beautifying  homelessness. And I realized, NIMBY (not in my backyard) is such an issue that help for the homeless population is almost never intact without attempting to beautify the issue. Individualistic Americans are so concerned with the appearance of their living state, that beautifying the homeless population might actually help in achieving neighboring support. I don’t believe in beautifying the homeless community, but if the idea of beautifying can actually achieve more support (in some areas) then maybe its not such a bad thing. This idea of building tiny houses,  attempts to normalize the homelessness issue. I believe tiny houses, in some way, are a good idea but I disagree along the lines of such small houses/living spaces where the resident cannot live comfortably. If tiny houses are used to support the unhoused community, then the living spaces should include a normal and healthy living area.

Since this class started, I have become hyper-aware of all the homeless encampments I see when I’m driving in the area. Before this class, I’m not sure if I would have seen the tents hidden in the Santa Ana Wash or noticed the shelter-like structures off the 210 heading toward San Bernardino. I think this is a positive part of taking this class because it’s forcing me to actually see the homeless people in our area. The “out of sight, out of mind” attitude isn’t easy to hold when a daily commute involves recognizing certain homeless people/ popular homeless “areas”. Even this past Saturday I took a trip out to Venice and felt like I was seeing homeless people left and right. It triggered an interesting conversation with the friend I was with as we started talking about the different approaches to solving the homelessness problem. Her view on homelessness was very victim-centered and she had a worry about enabling the homeless by offering services. I encouraged her to think of the countless people who are homeless due to external factors, like job loss, and used our close friend as an example to show her how easy it would be to become homeless in L.A. Even though we disagreed on the fundamental contributions to homelessness, we were still able to have a conversation about it and could hear each other out. Even on our way back to Redlands, she pointed out several tents under freeway passes and acknowledged that whoever was living there definitely was in need of some help.

It’s so important to be aware of the problems around us that don’t affect us directly! We can all lend a hand and do something to help.

As we reach the end of our semester I am glad to say that I have learned a lot in this course. I would like to think of myself as an open and “progressive” person, but I no doubt held, and perhaps still hold, problematic views about homelessness in the United States of America. One such view is the idea that people are homeless through individual action more than structural consequences. Rising housing prices are a substantial factor in contemporary homelessness, but it is also important to acknowledge the structure of social welfare policy. There are not large programs or sources of funding to provided housing to the marginally housed. America’s criminalizes drug use and addiction rather than treating those issues as a public health epidemic. Medicaid is extremely difficult to get into, and, depending on your state, structurally deficient.

Additionally, I considered many to be on the street because of a mental illness. Upon examination, I’ve found reality to be more nuanced. Many on the street are mentally ill, and find it difficult to reenter society because of that disability. However, mental illness is a natural consequence of living on the street; the conditions inspire disability much more than the conditions are inspired by it. Reintegration is an important aspect of homelessness we have not touched on much.

I do have a few spots that I wish we could have covered more of. I wish this class had a more international perspective because I think a cross analysis of homelessness in other developed societies would provide substantial insight into American homelessness. Also, I wish we could have studied more about social services and policy targeted to economically marginalized communities.