Mental illness is a very broad term. It can refer to anything from ADD to schizophrenia and everything in between. Many of the people who fall under this broad spectrum, in today’s world, end up on the streets at some point in their life. In a very well written, thought-provoking article Rick Jervis emphasizes that, “The mentally ill homeless are some of the hardest to reach and toughest to treat, often self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and teetering between lucidity and crippling despair.” In my mind the mentally ill portion of the homeless are looked by the general public at as “passed the point of outside help” or dangerous, or just plain crazy so no one dares get near them. I know for me growing up in a town with a large homeless population, I was never to go near or talk to any of them, especially the “crazy” ones. You see a many walking down the street talking to himself or yelling at the lamppost, chances are you will walk the other way or cross the street to avoid him. This attitude towards those who are mentally ill makes it increasingly hard for them to find help or even find a place to sleep. And rather than helping these people find places to live and gain access to medication to help their illness, we as a government are paying millions of dollars a year paying for them to essentially “be on the street.”

But why have so many mentally ill ended up on the street? It is because of the progression of the closing of mental hospitals in the late 1970s and then the slow failure of the help that was supposed to replace them. Without the hospitals and the ability to commit someone against their will, and without the easy access to medication this drove a large portion of the mentally ill to the streets. It’s been almost 50 years since this epidemic so my question is why haven’t we done anything. After reading this article I came across in USA today, I realized that there is more work being done towards a solution that I realized. Between housing first and permanent supportive housing there has been efforts and funding that has been put towards the issue. I think that this is very important because this recognition that there is a problem is the first step towards a solution. But the progress is slow, and it concerns me that it is not an issue that is at the forefront of our awareness as a society. There needs to be help provided to these people who cannot help themselves. Mental illness is a very serious issue that needs to be addressed instead of stared at. Because no one likes to stick out of a crowd and if you have a mental illness, without help, you have no chance of fitting in.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/27/mental-health-homeless-series/14255283/

Our discussion over the Crack epidemic in the 1980s made me think about the whole issue of imprisoning those who have committed nonviolent drug offenses.  Of course, we know that someone is much more likely to become homeless when the get out of prison (much thanks to our so called “correctional” facilities).  I read that almost 2 million people are currently imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses.  This is where a large problem exists within our correctional system.  We treat everyone who has committed a crime, no matter what that may be, as if they need to be banned from society and punished, rather than rehabilitated.

From a liberal mindset, one might say that to address this issue, we should simply reduce the sentencing for these crimes, or even make drug use legal.  It would reduce prison populations, and possibly help control drug cartels.  However, what might be the ramifications for this?  Would drug use increase if we reduced fines and sentencing?  Do we have any country that we can use as a model?  Would this model be relative to our society?  In other words, could we say that if a smaller, less developed country legalized drugs and benefited from it, could we rightfully assume that it would help us?  I think its important to look at the other side of the spectrum when discussing issues such as this.

Also, I hope that we can also discuss the way prisons operate and are organized.  I read that the cost to house a prisoner is something like $30,000 a year.  Also, how are prisons “privatized?”  and how does that influence the homeless population?

We recently read a chapter from Heise about “Native Americans Who Are Poor”. I was moved by the facts that were presented about this group of people and desired for us all to have more knowledge about this particular group experiencing poverty.

So here is my attempt to provide us with some information and to see what others think about these findings.

HUD and the VA awarded $5.9 million to 26 tribes in 12 states for permanent housing for Native American Veterans experiencing homelessness in January 2016.

http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2016/HUDNo_16-001

In 2012, 1-in-4 American Indians and Alaska Natives were living in poverty. This seems astonishing to me, but also similar rates of poverty occur in black and Hispanic communities.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/13/1-in-4-native-americans-and-alaska-natives-are-living-in-poverty/

Issues that are identified that perpetuate poverty are the lack of education, food, and health care. The Federal government has provided funds to Native American communities in recent years. According to a former adviser of the White House on welfare issues, “It’s extremely difficult. If people aren’t integrated into American society then it’s very difficult to reach them and create the basis for economic opportunity and affluence.”

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/11/27/native-americans-left-behind-in-the-economic-recovery

It seems to me that there is a historical problem with the segregation of native peoples that is still perpetuated on reservations. A disadvantage of living on a reservation is the lack of jobs and fostering of a local economy. Without the ability to work where one lives, you encounter such obstacles like the cost of transportation, accessing basic needs, and an overall unsustainable life.

I want to know, in moving forward with our assistance to vets especially with certain funds to Native Americans, what will the future look like for reservations? Are we paying enough attention to this issue? How can we incorporate this group of people into our class conversations?

I recently went to the laundromat with my mother. She had so much laundry to do that she would rather leave the house and go to the laundromat where there are bigger machines to use.

My mother, my one year old brother, and I walked in the laundromat. It was very crowded as I assume it would be on a Saturday morning. I saw two little girls holding a leash to a big pitbull, a lady talking to herself, and a little boy running around.

I sit on the bench with my little brother, a young woman walks in with her little daughter accompanied by a gust of cigarette smoke. I inevitably start coughing and get up from the bench as I do not want my baby brother to inhale the smoke. As I’m walking away, I hear the woman yell at me “Oh hell no!!!” I look back and I see her exit the laundromat and approach the window where I am at. At this point I am by my mother. I hear her furiously scream and cussing at me, saying, “Do you want to come outside right now? I will beat you right now. You better not come out with that baby..” (this is the censored version of what she said) My mother looks at me perplexed and asks me what I did to her. I immediately defend myself knowing I did absolutely nothing wrong.

I’m thinking to myself, did I offend her in some way?  Did my coughing bother her? I was beyond confused. She would later approach us face to face and start screaming at me again. In her rant she would reveal to me that she was homeless.

I was completely shocked. I greatly sympathized for her especially since she has a little daughter to take care of. I hope she finds the help she needs, no one can progress in life if they are angry at the world. Being homeless shapes how you perceive life and how you interact with others. It’s a sad reality that many who are homeless  have anger or mental problems they have to face everyday. The woman I met was no exception. How can they help themselves..

Saturday afternoon, I met with a representative from YouthHope, the organization I will be interning at this semester. After we finished filling out paperwork, she began to give me background on the organization and shared stories about young people that YouthHope has helped. As she went on,  the representative told me a story about a young girl whom the organization had met and helped a number of years ago. The girl, who they had come across by in Golden Gate park, was homeless and had been for many years. Her parents weren’t around, and she had no one to care for her. She explained to the representative that she had been on the streets for so long, that she did not even know her own age anymore. That information really struck me, as I could not fathom the experience of having been alone on the streets for so long, that I cannot recall my own age. The representative went on, and explained how the homeless girl had to sell her body for not only money, but also for human interaction and somewhere “safe” to sleep at night. The girl also explained how her friends, other homeless girls, had the same experiences as her. After hearing this story, I couldn’t help but be even more motivated  to volunteer for an organization that helps youth. I would never want to be in the situation that many homeless youth are in, and I realize that I am very privileged to have a home, and the many other things that I take for granted. I am very much looking forward in interning for YouthHope.

While looking through the Minneapolis newspaper website, The Star Tribune, an interesting article caught my attention from 2015. This article explains an odd zoning ordinance that mandates all emergency homeless shelters to be located in churches, mosques, temples, or other places of worship. In Minneapolis, under 1995 zoning rules, emergency homeless shelters must be located in a place of worship, except a small area downtown where emergency shelters can operate independently. This odd zoning ordinance was originally in place to allow emergency homeless shelters to be out of sight. While Minneapolis is known for having a church on nearly every corner, the amount of the homeless was rising and out growing the church basements the emergency homeless shelters were allotted. In 2015 this zoning ordinance was finally being reevaluated however I am unsure whether there has been an outcome yet.

It is important to note that often times religious organizations will let aid organizations or in this case emergency homeless shelters use rent out or use their facilities basements for no cost and often the churches do not fund these aid organizations.

With this zoning ordinance explained I began to imagine myself as a homeless person in Minneapolis in the dead of winter, which usually gets down to the negative twenties or below, and I need a place not only to sleep but to be during the day so I do no freeze to death. Now I also imagine I have only one choice to spend the day and night in a Lutheran church basement because that is where the nearest available emergency homeless shelter is located. If I do not feel comfortable associating with the Lutheran religion, let alone being in the church, I am out of luck. This zoning ordinance is very strange and puts many individuals in uncomfortable situations.

Has anybody else heard of any other zoning ordinances similar to this?

Heres the link to the 2015 article!

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-may-free-homeless-shelters-from-worship-spaces/292035401/

For my homeless count report I looked at the Los Angeles Homeless Count Report of 2015. The 2015 Los Angeles Homeless Count, led by the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), is the largest in the country. 5,500 volunteers participated in the 2015 count. There are four components of the count.

First there is the street count, where they count the unsheltered population. Then there is the shelter count, where they count the homeless population in emergency shelters, transitional housing, safe havens, and vouchered hotels/motels. Thirdly, there is a demographic survey that gives a sample of unsheltered homeless individuals to better understand the characteristics and experiences of homeless persons. Lastly, there is a youth count to better understand and identify homeless youth. LAHSA’s roles and responsibilities to conduct the count included developing the demographic survey in collaboration with the community, managing and completing the sheltered and unsheltered counts, assessing inclusion of youth count data in overall estimates, and reviewing and completing the final analysis of the results and preparing reports. The Carolina Survey Research Lab also collaborated with the LAHSA. They provided guidance and direction in methodology and data collection processes, analyzing initial data from the four Count components, and produce estimates and preliminary results.

Click to access HC2015CommissionPresentation.pdf

Compared to my everyday routine, today was an early morning. Being a college student I typically roll out of bed around 8:45-9:00 to get to my 9:30 class, although I realize this is unrealistic in the real world currently in my life this is my reality. Today was an earlier morning than normal because I woke up at 7:00 to be at my internship at Redlands Family Services by 8:00 AM.

I had to duty of preparing and serving breakfast to the people who would arrive at 9:00. I helped prepare pancakes, potatoes as well as setting out bagels and numerous options for drinks. When the people arrived to eat they would all sign in and then come to be served. Unlike most days there were many children because today there was no school so the food went fast. Every person I gave food to were very thankful for what they were receiving, which helped make my early wake up call much more rewarding.

Although Redlands Family Service is typically only for people who are registered with them and not a walk in help sort of service, anyone including the homeless are allowed to come in for breakfast and dinner. Today there were no random walk ins, but maybe the next time I volunteer and help with breakfast there will be.

The second task I took for the day was to organize the weekly breakfast, lunch and dinner bags. These are bags of groceries for families who need emergency help. One interesting thing I learned while doing this was how they like to bag the food in the same grocery bags. For example with one grouping of food use all Vons bags and another can be Albertsons bags. At first I did not understand the point of this and then it was explained to me that they organize the food in this way so when the parents go home the children can believe there parents went to the grocery store to buy those products and not that they got them for free.

We have been constantly going over the importance of homeless counts and the ways in which they are conducted. Each state across the country has their own way of gathering the necessary information, some proving to be more effective than others. These counts are done in institutions such as emergency shelters and also unsheltered places which include the streets and parks. The overall purpose of these counts is to help communities so that they can be provided with enough resources to hopefully someday end homelessness. It is reasonable to say that it is absolutely impossible to come down to an exact number of homeless people yet homeless counts are an attempt to gather accurate information in order to provide the necessary resources.

Aside from homeless counts it is also beneficial to have an understanding of the things that lead to homelessness. This class has allowed me to gain a better understanding that loss is a major factor to this problem such as the loss of family, loss of jobs and loss of home. It is very easy to point the finger or simply place the blame on addiction when in reality there are so many other factors involved. Too often people become homeless because there are issues that are out of that individual’s control forcing them into homelessness. Even when a person loses everything, it can become difficult to get out of homelessness. On the other side, there are situations where people who actually want to help and make a difference run into several barriers that are out of their control which prevent them from giving homeless people the help that they desperately need. There are an immense number of things that one can learn yet simply being conscious of your place in society can be beneficial. For example do not just give people the resources that they need, but give them the tools that will help them in the long run. Sometimes it is down to one person’s attitude, instead of an entire group of people that can really make a difference.

We’ve been focusing a lot on homelessness in urban areas such as New York City and various parts of L.A. County, so I wanted to look more at rural areas and see how homelessness is affecting people. What I did found is that many who find themselves homeless in a rural area often try their best to make it to an urban setting with the idea that more people equals more job opportunities and more places to sleep. I stumbled across this interactive map that ranks each state’s homelessness per 100 thousand residents for the last five to six years, and I was surprised to see first off that Hawaii ranks number one in the country for most homeless people per 100 thousand residents. I could have guessed that California and New York have very large homeless populations, but I had no idea how prevalent homelessness is in between the two coasts. Places like Montana, Minnesota, and North Dakota have much more homelessness than I would have first anticipated (North Dakota went from 46th in 2012 to 6th in 2013), and Mississippi really threw me off when I saw it’s ranked 50th in the country with only 94 homeless people per 100 thousand residents; I guess those are my uneducated biases coming in to play.

Another thing I saw that I think is worth noting is that there are only four states on the map that have more unsheltered homeless than sheltered homeless. I get a couple different feelings from this data, the first being that maybe we are doing a decently good job dealing with homelessness and the lack of affordable housing if there is a vastly greater sheltered homeless population than unsheltered homeless population. Secondly, how many of those people (sheltered and unsheltered) are getting any other aid they need to survive. And lastly if there is potential for the unsheltered to get in to shelters, and the sheltered to get jobs and affordable housing, or are people just doubling up and moving around? From what I saw on the maps from years past the numbers in California have stayed pretty consistent; maybe this just looks like good news and we actually haven’t done that much to improve the situations of homeless people.

http://www.movoto.com/blog/opinions/homelessness-in-america-maps/