For our teaching project, we decided to spread awareness about homelessness by bringing a report of facts to our peers at school. The reason we chose to do so is because we believe that the first step to teaching others about a problem in society is to first demonstrate that there is in fact a problem. We had to recognize that many of our peers would probably have little knowledge on the topic of homelessness, just as we did in the beginning of the semester. So that being said, we decided that we needed to find a way to bring the epidemic to others’ attention. Not only did we have to bring it to their attention, but we also had the task of explaining why homelessness is an epidemic in our present day society.

As for the audience of our teaching project, we chose to teach our peers at the University of Redlands. There were a number of reasons why we decided on this audience. The first reason was that it was simpler to teach our peers, since they are typically at the same level of education as ourselves. This meant that we did not have to design an elaborate teaching plan for professors or staff, nor did we have to oversimplify the material in order to teach youth.  Choosing to educate our peers was also more convenient because they are right here on campus. Once we had our audience, we had to plan out how exactly we were going to present the information. We had to plan it so that the students would be interested in learning about homelessness. We researched homelessness in the San Bernardino County area. This way, the information would be more personal to the students since it is in the area of which they go to school. Not only did we research homelessness in the area, but we also collected data on college students and homelessness. The data that was collected was astounding, and we had hopes that our peer would be just as appalled as we were. So that led us to creating a fact filled sheet with quick facts about homelessness in San Bernardino county. A fact sheet seemed like a good idea so that students can quickly and effortlessly receive the information we provided. For the fact sheet, we chose alarming and eye catching statistics in order to thoroughly grab the reader’s attention. These statistics concerned homelessness among children and students, which we knew would interest the readers. We planned on passing out printed copies of the fact sheet in front of the commons area during peak busy hours. That way we would be able to attempt to get the word out to as many students and staff  as possible. We also planned to keep a printed copy of the full report in case any of the students had any questions or wanted to read over the report.

Rebecca Hulbert

Karina Fernandez

Over the past two months I have watched many kids come and go. I’ve seen good kids; bad kids, crazy kids and just normal need some help kids. I’ve watched kids grow and I’ve watched them change. I’ve seen how horrible life can be and how much help some youth really need and how little they receive. I’ve watched promises be broken and kids come out the other side disappointed and hurt. I’ve discovered how brutal the system is and everything that happens within this runaway, foster care system takes so much time. I’ve realized that the people who generally hurt these kids are those who are closest to them. The ones that mean the most to them are the ones who have the most power to hurt them. I’ve watched kids lash out because life hasn’t been fair to them. I’ve seen rules broken for the sake of the clients. I have learned how to answer the phone, what to say to new clients who want to come in, how to fill out an intake sheet, how to update a client file, how to lead a group session. I’ve learned that the simple act of eating meals with these kids at the dinner table can create trust. I’ve learned that shelter food isn’t always as bad as it looks, and that clients actually do have input on the meal plan each week. I’ve learned that for funding purposes each clients must sign their name that they have eaten after every meal and they are assigned chores to clean up the house after dinner. I have learned that gloves must be used while preparing food, and that I am not as good of a cook as I thought I was.

I learned a lot working at our house but not nearly as much as I thought I would. I thought I would learn a lot more about the system, but instead I ended up learning more about the clients. I wouldn’t change this learning experience, but I wish there had been someone there who would’ve had time to teach me more in depth about how the shelter and all of the outside forces work. I didn’t feel like I even was able to brush the surface of what I could’ve learned and done. I never got to sit in on an intake because none ever came in while I was working. I never got to help with departures again because none ever happened on my shift. I only ever answered the phone a few times and never was really shown how the case filing and case managing worked. This is not the fault of the shelter, but rather a combination of my time constraint and bad luck.

I could spend all day analyzing all of the things I saw and heard at Our House. I could create conclusions, come up with assumptions and use my sociologist brain to analyze each and every scenario. But I’m going to try not to follow this instinct because it would take away from my experience. I went in as a sociologist, ready to analyze everyone and everything, but instead I came out with personal connections to people who I never thought would give me the time of day. I was worried about being accepted within the shelter and trying to find equal placing with the staff and clients. But once I realized that I was the one who was bringing all of the stereotypes and stigmas about myself and that once I accepted myself in that environment that the others would follow. That skill is easier said than done, but it is the one that I will take with me and use for the rest of my life.

For my teaching project Tatiana and I decided to show the documentary Voices in the Tunnels: In Search of the Mole People. We felt that it was an accurate representation of the kind of life that several homeless people have. My aim was to educate our audience enough to have them put aside their stereotypical views and look at this issue with an open mind. We felt that this movie had the potential to prove the message that we were attempting to give out. It is a documentary which exposed the students to real conversations and real people who were adapted to an entirely different lifestyle under the busy streets of New York.
I thought that the film was very beneficial to our project because not only were they able to hear from us about the problem of homelessness but they were able to see it for themselves. We educated our audience about how too often the individual is blamed for being homeless when in reality there are so many factors that actually go into this issue such as the economy, the safety net, affordable housing and minimum wage. The main obstacle that is preventing this problem from being solved is only ourselves. Society is not giving this issue the attention that it desperately needs. It was important for me to point out that part of the reason is because many people do not believe that the homeless are worthy of being saved. This kind of mentality is due to the concept of the American Dream, the idea that if you are in the streets is because you did not work enough. Taking this course has really made me look at homelessness from a humane perspective. How many people people living on the streets and barely getting buy on a minimum wage will it take until politicians and society realizes that this is a real problem. One of my biggest realizations when watching this film was when one of the people in the tunnels said “ there’s a very thin line between where you are and where I am”. I would have never understood these words the way I do now until taking this course. I find it very important that people recognize that homelessness can happen to just about anyone, there are certain things that are hard to prevent. It is even more important to be able to recognize that not every person in the streets is a criminal and that they once had a normal life too and just because life has stripped away their home does not mean that they have also lost their humanity.

I have been volunteering at YouthHope for about two months now on Thursdays. My main role is to supervise the computer lab and help anyone who may need help building a resume or job searching. However, yesterday was not like other Thursdays. I have been debating about posting on the blog and finally came to the conclusion that this is something people should be aware of. Hunger, homelessness, and poverty is a real issue that takes a lot of strength to overcome.

Our project consisted of chalking in various places around the University of Redlands campus in effort to promote public awareness around the issue of hunger and homelessness in America. The initial plan was to create a list of facts about poverty, hunger, and homelessness in America that would eventually be transcribed onto the concrete floors of the university for the public to read. Due to a similar interest in this type of project, we decided to split the project among some of our peers. The other group successfully got the project proposal approved, in order for the chalking to be possible. In the project proposal, the designated areas we desired to chalk were listed. Additionally, the list of facts we wished to chalk was reviewed.

The audience was not supposed to know who was behind writing these facts on the concrete. This was intended to minimize bias and conflict of interest. This activity was also not meant to come off as preaching. However, in the point in time when we decided to draw in front of the Hunsaker plaza, there was a rather large Greek life, recruiting event occurring simultaneously. As we chalked, individuals from the Geek life event were intrigued and wanted to know what we were chalking.

This activity was designed to be straight to the point and create the type of fear in individuals that makes them want to make change and get emotional about the reality of hunger, poverty, and homelessness. The point was not to change the hunger and homelessness, but to make our community aware that it is a major issue in our own city and country. We wanted people to read the chalk outside the commons and think about the people that do not have food, nonetheless a table. We wanted people to walk in their dorms they so often complain about and take for granted, and think about the people living in shelters. We wanted students to think about how privileged they are to be able to complain about the lack of air conditioning in their room that women, hired by the university, clean for them on a weekly basis.

For my teaching project I decided to create a 7^th grade social studies unit that focused on educating the students about homelessness. the name of the unit is Homeless are people too. It is a 12 day lesson plan that spans over 4 weeks. Here is a sample of a few of the days:

Day one:

• Introduce the word homeless, ask them what they think it means and write their answers on the board.
• Have them write in graphic organizer what makes where they live home, what they like about it. Once they are finished with that we would do either think pair share or just go around the room and share what they wrote.
• Hang those on our bulletin board and then ask them what they would do if they had none those things?
• And have them write a reflective 1-page paper on that topic in their daily journal.

Day two:

• Would begin the class going over our writing assignment and having each student share one thing that they wrote.
• I would then show a power point presentation about 5 or 6 people in history who have similar lives and but half would be homeless and the other wouldn’t
• They would not know this so I would have them get together in groups try to guess which ones were homeless and which were not. The objective here would be to get them to see that homeless people could be anyone.
• For homework I would have them read “homeless” by Anna Quindlen and write a response to it in their daily journal

Day three:

• Review the article, have a discussion about their responses to it. This will lead into-
• Start talking about the different definitions of homelessness, what it means to be homeless, present a power point to the class on all of the different ways to be homeless- couch surfing, shelter living, on the street, doubling up etc.
• Split them up into groups and have them make a poster board about each of the different ways to be homeless. Have them do a little extra research on the topic they are assigned we will pin these up around the classroom.
• For homework write a response to the class in their journal.

Day four:

• Review the different definitions of homelessness and finish the posters if they are not already done.
• We would then watch a few clips of videos off of the invisible people website, stories of some homeless people and I would have them write down observations about each person and specifically focus on why each person was homeless.
• We would then share those ideas and write all of the reasons they observed in the videos on the board.
• For homework I would give them two or three more personal stories about homeless people to read and they would have to come back and be able to tell the class who the people they read about were and why they were homeless and have written that up as well. (In their daily journal)

The participants of this project had various opinions on homeless people prior to watching the film. When we asked them to write everything that came to mind when they thought of the word homeless they wrote down things like Detroit, MI, veterans, dependent, minorities, lonely, ill-mannered, begging, unemployed, financially irresponsible, dirty, STDs, and misrepresented. While most of these terms carry a negative connotation, not all the participants believed homeless people are drug addicts, alcoholics, and complete bums. They expressed some knowledge about the homelessness crisis, saying the closing of mental hospitals in the 1980s was very detrimental to the lives of the mentally ill. In addition some believed not all homeless people are to blame for their situation, that there are other factors at work; they acknowledged the fact that the system is the real problem. Overall the participants’ views on homeless people ranged from fairly positive to quite negative; however, we then proceeded to watch The Pursuit of Happyness and afterward asked them if the movie had changed some of their opinions on homeless people. In our post-film discussion we heard more terms and phrases like “hardworking,” “loving,” and “trying to do the best with what they’ve got,” uncommon associations with the homeless. One participant then said lack of public awareness is a significant reason why there is such a stigma on homeless people, and that it is important for the rest of society to recognize where these people come from, what their situation is, and what their lives are like. In response to this we had them write down all the solutions to homelessness they could think of. This activity yield vastly fewer ideas than the first one, but in addition to increased public awareness they believed reducing the number of incarcerations of drug users and homeless people, giving homeless a place to live, rehabilitation centers, and food banks are all ways to improve the lives of the homeless. At this point we introduced the participants to some concepts we have been learning about in class such as housing first, as well as the fact that shelters and service agencies are not nearly as impactful as they need to be or could be because of the way society is structured. They were quite surprised to hear how people wait weeks, months, even years to get into shelters because of waiting lists and all kinds of complications and hoops to jump through. None of them were fans of the leaf blower effect and agreed it is the laziest way to go about dealing with the homeless population. Housing first was a more popular topic. They all believed housing first was the most obvious change that needs to be made and that its is probably going to have a significant impact on getting homeless people off the streets and on a better path.

This blog post isn’t so much about the news or a personal story its more of a question and an observation of one of my friends living situation. So I know we talk about in class about what the definition of homelessness is and i was wondering if this specific story or living situation is considered a type of homelessness. So my friend currently is in college at this university and he was living in an off campus house and his lease ended so he was forced to move out and he had no were to go so some of his friends let him stay in their dorm room on a futon that he had and he brought into the room and they are letting him live there for the semester because he does not want to have to sign another lease and he does not have the money to afford a new place on his own. so my final and overall question is based on our description and definition of homelessness that we have gone over in class and done in our reading would this considered a type of homelessness or what i know its not a permanent place he is staying at but it is a place that he has his own bed and his own section in the room with two other males so i was just wondering what would this be considered as.

I had to complete a project where I volunteered and observed a social service agency that helps homeless and/or hungry, and I choose The Blessing Center.  This is an agency located in Redlands, about a mile from the University. This organization helps both the hungry and those in poverty. Their goal is “to help alleviate poverty and despair through multi-faceted resourcing of poor and disadvantaged families and individuals who are hurting, in need of food, clothing, medical and dental care, job resources and many other needs.” This goal description also gives a little insight into what type of services they provide and for whom.

The Blessing Center provides a food bank every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. For these three days, the volunteers at The Blessing Center only have two hours to distribute food boxes to upwards of 400 families, with Tuesday’s typically being their most popular day. These boxes contain food provided by local companies and farms, all of which has been donated. 

Since they cannot give out boxes everyday of the week, they do provide sack lunches every day. This is a little easier to obtain, all you have to do to receive a lunch is to sign in at the front desk. These lunches typically include items that will perish faster, but also easy to eat foods, such as sandwiches and bananas. The number of people that come in for a lunch is around 20 people, which is much less than the amount that come in on food bank days.

The Blessing Center has its own “store” full of donated items. Clients can come in each day to pick out a different outfit for free. The criteria for receiving clothing is just like the sack lunches, where they only have to sign in at the front desk. But the clients are restricted as to how much time they are allowed in the store and how much clothing they can take, which varies for single people and families.

The Blessing Center provides many services to make sure people can get on their feet a little easier. Some of the services include: GED courses, AA meetings, resume classes, life coaching classes, computer classes, and job coaching classes. All of these services plan to help people succeed in landing a job and being successful in their careers.

The Blessing Center provides a medical and dental clinic that is free to everyone who does not have health insurance. Here people and families can sign up to be an applicant for the clinic, the only requirement is that they do not have any form of health insurance. This clinic offers general dentistry, such as fillings and cleaning, as well as health screenings, primary care, and minor surgeries.

I spent most of my time in clothing organizing the clothes and their sorting system, but I also spent some time with the food distribution and observing. While volunteering I looked around a lot and observed what was happening at the center. While some days there wasn’t much going on, I still got a feel of how the clients and volunteers were treated and received a little feedback from both.

I don’t think that I actually spent enough time in my organization to be able to fully understand how they operate daily, but I did learn a lot about how important volunteers and donations are. This organization would not survive without the help of private donations. All of their food and clothing is donated, so they wouldn’t have to spend any money on purchasing these items. Without volunteers, they probably wouldn’t have enough money to spend on salaries for their workers, especially those in the medical profession for the clinic.

We’ve looked at places like Dignity Village where tiny houses are starting to pop up as places for low-income and homeless people to live in, but now people are starting to build them for their own minimalist purposes as a new pop culture trend. Is this something that could be detrimental to the purpose of tiny houses? We don’t normally see something that is implemented to benefit the lower members of society become an aspect of pop culture, and I’m starting to think this could either help or hurt the homeless and low-income citizens. I think the introduction of tiny houses into pop culture could be beneficial by showing how higher members of society can live in them; the low cost and high impact of giving someone a place to live could sway public opinion to be in favor of using this method to help those in need of a house. On the other hand having higher members of society demonstrate the effectiveness of tiny houses could give people the opinion that tiny houses are a luxury, and possibly a luxury that homeless and low-income citizens don’t deserve. I guess what it comes down to is how this concept will be brought up to the public; obviously it is rooted in the homelessness crisis, but if others around the country are introduced to this idea as an aspect of pop culture as opposed to a way to a way of dealing with the homelessness crisis how is that going to affect the social stigma around tiny houses, homeless people, and homeless people in tiny houses?