For my teaching project a classmate and I tabled at the Sustainability Festival on March 29th. We had the table from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm and were able to get to know a few of the people and businesses there and strike up some very interesting conversations with some of the people who were interested. It was tricky at first when we were trying to figure out how to engage passing people, not to mention we felt a little bit out of place originally. I was confused at first how hunger and homelessness applied to sustainability, however as the day progressed we were able to understand not only the role that we were playing in creating a sustainable future through our awareness of the legitimate reality of homelessness and hunger, but were also able to learn a lot from the people that we spoke to. What stuck out to me the most was that the whole experience was in one way or another proof that most people don’t understand the structural causes of homelessness and the ways in which government aid truly works. The only people who seemed to have any real knowledge about federal safety net programs were the ones who admitted to having received services in the past. I noticed a great deal of shame that the few people who had admitted to receiving assistance felt in association with their particular government aid. It was heartbreaking because there was one woman who admitted that the aid she was receiving wasn’t helping her, but she was still struggling with the guilt that she felt for receiving anything in the first place. It was also strange to hear to hear an old man say that he believed homelessness was perpetuated through laziness and a diminished need to work due to government aid. Although we have been discussing how many people do falsely believe that these are the causes of homelessness, it was strange to see a perfectly kind stranger voicing these beliefs in such a casual manner. What was most interesting was when Taylor or I was able to tell someone about some of the structural and political failures that have directly related to the perpetuation of homelessness, because most people were more than willing to try and understand a new way of thinking. There was one woman who I was able to have a discussion with about our theory of homelessness as not being an issue of the individual. She seemed mind blown by the thought that perhaps homelessness had to due with the structural aspects of our society, culture, and government. She was so intrigued by the idea that she stayed to discuss it with me until she felt she properly understood. While some moments seemed more productive than others, overall it was a great experience. I learned that we cannot be sustainable as a society with structural policies and discourses that are not made with all people in mind. The sustainability fair provided people from all walks of life. From different countries, cultures, religions, class,  etc. but nearly everyone we talked to was willing try to understand and create a discourse about homelessness that no longer perpetuated blame.   That for me, was enough to prove how important this class and the discourse that it can creates is. I am glad that  I was able to have such an incredible experience teaching what we have been learning and discussing in class. While at times it was hard to get people to actually talk about how they really felt about homelessness, the few that did proved that a new discourse can possibly be created that perpetuates the real causes of homelessness, poverty, and hunger in the United States.

I lead a discussion and interactive presentation on the Real Structural Causes of Homelessness with my classmate Sam in our Intentional Integral Living Learning Community on our University’s Campus.  To advertise our event we made an announcement at a community meeting which 70 people attended, a facebook event, which we invited 350 students, we made posters and we sent out 2 community emails, a week before and a reminder the day of the event. Despite this, only 3 people attended our event. This was disappointing because we worked very hard on our presentation and wanted to have a community discussion on the important real structural causes of homelessness and solutions.

Presentation Outline: 

1. Visualization living on the street homeless
2. Real Structural Causes: Neoliberal Governance, Hegemony: Dominance Model, Social Inequality: Race, Gender, Class
3. Ethnography of Systemic Inequality
4. Causes of Homelessness
5. Stereotypes
6. Discrimination and Recurring Trends throughout history
7. African American Civil War, Civil Rights
8. Women’s Liberation Movement
9. Solutions given from Homeless People
10. Public Policy Solutions
11.  Local Solutions:
12. My Internship at Homeless Youth Shelter
13. Sam’s internship at Salvation Army
14. State of CA solutions
15. National Solutions
16. What can we do? Discussion and Q/A

During the visualization one of the students was brought back to past experiences in low in come neighborhoods and on the street in DC. He shared  he remembered distinct smells, and busy business people quickly walking through the streets. Hes watched people rush past homeless people asking for money.  He also stated that most people would rather give their money to larger organizations then give money to people they meet on the street.

During our discussion one of the students shared her experience on Skid Row in LA, working with her Church to serve meals. While working there she heard a homeless person’s story.  The man she met received a college education, had a job as a computer software designer but went into severe debt from surgeries for his health conditions. This is an example of a person,  who simply needs affordable health care to survive. This is a policy issue. I believe everyone should be given free socialized health care which is similar to healthcare in countries in Europe.

After the presentation I felt frustrated no Community members attended the event.  This community when I arrived as a freshman, was very activism and social justice focused. 2 Years later their are new community members with different interests.  I am disappointed that I was not encouraged or supported my Community for this event. This was a big wake up call! As an activist I want to reach out to all people, especially as a student to other students.  Its hard to get students on campus interested and care about social justice, a lot harder than I expected.  Students would rather go to Community parties and play video games together than go to a Discussion Group on REAL ISSUES.

For my teaching project I held a table at the Sustainability Festival on March 29^th with a fellow classmate.  We had the table from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm and so it was a significant chunk of time to get an audience.  We had created a pamphlet to pass out to the different people who came by stating who we were and what our class is about.  We included a brief description of the main causes of homelessness in America and what we think the answers are to the problem.  We also included the main questions we have been working to answer in our class thus far about counting the homelessness, what it is like to be homeless, etc.  We also reached out to local organizations and the community service center at the university to get fliers and pamphlets of the resources in the community.  We had items from Redlands Family Association,  Angels Closet, Option House, San Bernardino Sexual Assault Services, and a couple more from organizations who came up to our table and left their fliers with us.  The purpose of our teaching project was to attempt to educate some of the community about the causes of homelessness.  We wanted to see what people thought the causes of homelessness were and then teach them what we have learned to better inform them.  We accomplished our goal of teaching people about the causes.  Of course some were more on board than others, but it was a very good experience.  The answers people came up with as far as what causes homelessness were mainly on the same lines as the stereotypes of homelessness we read about.  A lot of the audience was surprised we were students and confused why we were not asking for donations or from an organization.  When we explained we just wanted to educate them, some were really excited about it and others just turned away and left the booth.  There was definitely a mixture of people whether it be age, gender, or profession.   I learned that I have to be more outgoing to get people to the table.  This was definitely my biggest weakness because I thought people would see our table and come on their own if they were interested but we really had to bring them in or they wouldn’t stay.  It was a learning experience for us and I think it went really well.

For mine and Sally’s teaching project, our vision was to tackle common stereotypes of the homeless population. As we have learned in class and from personal experiences at our internships and elsewhere, society in general has a negative image of those who are without a home or living through poverty despite the fact that it is not the fault of these individuals. The consensus in our capitalistic culture is to label these individuals as “lazy” or “deviant”, because blaming the individual is far less terrifying than the realization that as a society we are failing to prevent this problem. The ideas about homeless persons being at fault or to blame are far too prevalent and show a significant lack of understanding of structural issues that contribute to poverty. This is why we sought out to show our peers the real story of homelessness that is not often heard with the end goal to raise awareness.

In order to successfully carry out our teaching project, we thought that it would be beneficial to offer new information in a unique and attention-grabbing way. We complied shocking facts, quotes, and statistics which we placed on small cards and handed these to people as they walked in and out of the commons. Our goal was to distribute short cards that offered information versus any lengthy information that was too overwhelming. Over the course of two days, we were able to hand out nearly 200 of these fact cards. The people that we were able to hand cards to read them with their friends or alone and the overall response was shock.

As a follow-up, we also assembled a list of local organizations that many of our classmates have been able to get involved with for the internship portion of the course. Offering the chance to get involved in alleviating homelessness was a significant portion of our teaching project. While simply giving out information regarding homelessness is significant, we felt is was important to include options for outreach. Many people seemed curious about these agencies and how they could get involved.

One of the downsides to our project was the depression that it caused among our peers. While we did have a list of agencies which offer ways to get involved to give people the hope that they can change the situation for the better, the simple fact is that teaching about poverty is not a cheerful subject. In retrospect, to prevent such feelings of despair, we could have given facts about the impact that some people are making every day in the lives of the homeless.

Although our teaching project had some faults, overall we were pleased with the success of our project and the impact that we were able to make. Only after this teaching project did we become aware of how much information we had learned over the course of this semester. I know that we will continue to share our knowledge to others because it is a really rewarding experience.

I decided to look up some articles on hunger and homelessness and the actions being taken in regards to them. As I was searching I came across two articles about the actions being taken that DO NOT prevent hunger and homelessness. These two articles left an impression on me. One of the articles was about two police officers that thought it was okay to have a contest to see how many homeless signs they could take away from the homeless. That to me was beyond disrespectful, this brought into mind the flaws in our system. If the authority does not talk the initiative to help and instead make fun of those going through hard times then what example do they leave for the community. In addition to disrespecting the homeless and taking away a sign that is not in any way illegal and is a form of freedom of speech, their sanction for such actions was a three day suspension with no pay. Many citizens in the community were in disagreement of the sanction because they felt that the sanction was not  valid for the actions that were done by the police officers. The other article that I found was about bills and different actions taking place in larger cities that are banning any help being provided to those who are hungry and homeless. This to me brought me much anger. Why is our society continuing these awful patterns and yet they want hunger and homelessness to end? There is a lack of government support in regards to hunger and homelessness. Actions need to be taken.

Links to articles: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/27/police-officers-collect-homeless-signs_n_4865959.html?utm_hp_ref=homelessness

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/feeding-the-homeless-banned-in-major-cities-all-over-america

During the course, our class has explored and discovered how the organizations systems works from the observations in our internships.  We learned in our final internship reports that some organizations need structure, teamwork, and leadership skills managing the shelter successfully.  After reading the book, “Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance”, the activist Vincent Lyon-Callo provided solutions in addressing homelessness by practicing methods to treat deviancy, and re-establish policies to provide practical assistance to the homeless people.  However, learning efficient solutions, and adopting new methods to prevent the cycle of homelessness can likely reduce the number of the homeless population, and improve the communities.

Last week, our class had a guest speaker via Skype named Dan McGuire from the Homeless Solutions Inc., (http://www.homelesssolutions.org/ ) the oldest organization in the county of New Jersey.  In his lecture, McGuire discussed many services that has been expanding throughout the years providing renovated projects to assist the homeless communities and low-income families.  I was impress in how the organization has grown their association and improving their communities productively. The Homeless Solution Inc. offers programs like affordable and transitional housing, as well as homeless shelters for seniors, and single individuals.  The Homeless Solutions Inc. addressed the issue of homelessness by providing the necessary assistance to help families obtain a home, and at the same time improving the communities using foreclosure homes, and abandoned building to convert them to new housing development with energy saving features to relieve economic crisis.  This practice has worked well due to the state courts enforcing counties to established shelters as a cooperation of addressing the critical issue of poverty.  Perhaps considering these ideas in the state of California can help keep the homeless people of the streets, and help low-income families keep homes for their families at a reliable rate, and period.

I was incredibly moved by Toni Flynn’s book, “Finding My Way: A Journey Along the Rim of the Catholic Worker Movement.” Near the end of the book, she describes a moment she had in which she had o question her morals because she chose not to act when she should have. The anecdote she shares is about what she witnessed while eating an ice cream cone outside of a restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier. As she was sitting there, a homeless man approached the restaurant and began looking in the rubbish bin for something to eat. Instead of trying to assist the hungry man, one of the bartenders approached the homeless man and cruelly screamed at him to get away. The man elucidated that he was hungry and continued to look through the trash. In response, the bartender slammed the lid of the can onto the other man’s fingers. Instead of speaking out against the bartender’s actions, Toni sat there silently, stunned.

After the incident, Toni was troubled by her inability to act in the face of such blatant inhumanity. She asks herself, “what dark side of myself did I encounter? Why, witnessing an injustice, did I not act in some way to prevent such a violent, degrading incident? How can I forgive myself for committing such a gross withholding of love?” (p.53).

This quote was particularly significant to me, because it is a moment that I’m sure all of us can relate to, where we saw something wrong and did nothing to stop it. This quote reminds me of how I felt the other day. Last weekend, I was headed into a restaurant with my friend to get some lunch when we were approached by a homeless man holding window washing tools. He asked if he could clean her car windows in exchange for a few dollars. She declined his offer. He then asked us if we had any food we were willing to spare. Both of us said we did not. Once inside of the restaurant, I was overwhelmed by guilt. How dare I be so selfish as to deny another human being something as easy to accommodate as a meal? Horrified with my moral character, I quickly asked the hostess if she could expedite a to-go order so that I could provide the man with dinner. She obliged and I jogged outside to find the man so that I could offer him some food.

As I walked up to him, I witnessed him ask two other people for some spare change. Both individuals brushed him off. I greeted the man and asked if he’d be interested in some Mexican food. He seemed shocked by my offer and it took him a moment before he accepted. The two of us talked as we walked back over to the restaurant. Once there, I retrieved his dinner and he gratefully took it. As he was departing, the two men that had denied helping him earlier walked back up to him and both of them handed him a $20 bill. It just goes to show that even the smallest of gestures such as buying a hungry man some dinner can inspire others to do the right thing. I know that if I had gone on to eat my dinner without helping this man, I would’ve felt like Toni and hated myself for my inability to extend compassion to someone who needs it.

My internship was at a food bank here in the Inland Empire. This organization collects both local and nationally donated foods from a variety of sources. The donations are processed through their warehouse and then distributed to a variety of organizations (such as shelters, youth homes, soup kitchens, etc.) that share similar goals of helping those in need. This organization is functional due to their efficient structure.

The first important aspect is the staff and volunteers. Volunteers and staff are used as basically labor. It’s not intensive,  but they need as many hands as possible to pack boxes so the organization can stay efficient.There is a very relaxed hierarchy within the warehouse, everyone’s basically performing similar tasks. They emphasize a team dynamic

Funding is also vital to this organization. It costs the organization money to transport and store the food that they collect. Corporate sponsors play a huge role in financial assistance. Feeding America and United Way are the two main partners that provide financial donations.They also get revenue from what they call a shared maintenance contribution.  Some members told me corporate donations allow them to waive handling fees for the organizations they are providing to. While others told me they did have to pay. If you look at the application forms online, there is a detailed section of the contract regarding these fees. Either way, someone pays for their services. Local financial donations are also collected but they have a much smaller impact on the finances.

In order for an organization to become aligned with food bank and receive food, they must go through an application process.  The application is about twelve pages long detailing the steps an organization needs to take and paperwork to be filled out. It serves as a contract between the two parties as it outlines expectations and rules that are to be followed to receive food.

All of these structural aspects affects how well they live up to their goals and mission statement. This organization is efficient and successful in their goals. They provide food to organizations around the county and play an important role in feeding hundreds of people year around since 1980. But there are some downfalls to the type of assistance they offer when considering the bigger picture of poverty.

Having a large pool of donors is great for quantity but not for quality.  Most common items were snack foods, condiments and cereal that had little to no nutritional value and many of the donations are also either already expired or nearing expiration. There were some organic and gluten free items but they were still snack foods.

This organizations plays a huge role in feeding those in need and they do great work on the micro scale. They do not attack the issues on a structural level. It is a more reactionary type of assistance. This food bank will not achieve their mission of ending hunger within their function and structure as an organization. Providing someone with food enables individuals to survive while on the street or in hard times but not a way for any individual to escape their situations.

After volunteering for nearly two months at a local shelter in the Coachella Valley, I came to understand profoundly the critical issues of homelessness, and the structural system that creates poverty to be prevalent in our communities.  When I first arrived in the site, I came with partial knowledge of homelessness that was taught in class in terms of social support systems, history, and public policies.  The materials covered in class were evidence of a hidden issue that remain alive for decades, and continues to grow.  However, the facts were just an example of the unknown existence behind the lives of the people struggling to overcome poverty.

Having the opportunity granted by the agency to study in depth the foundations of homelessness, it change my way of perceiving people dealing with problems of addiction, domestic abuse, and financial reasons.  In the end I came to conclude that people like them are just the same ways as me trying to become better persons in life with goals for a better society.  In this journey I discovered my passions, aspirations, and capabilities, when I learned to overcome challenges that were difficult for me to handle.  I was push into the world of humanity to learn from my own mistakes, and learned to develop new techniques to face my fears of failure.  I came to the shelter asking myself who am I? And where do I want to belong?  After experiencing and witnessing the social inequalities towards the homeless people on the street, I realize that that’s the place where I want to belong, and I want to be to provide assistance in support, guidance, and inspirations.

Being part of the organization I learned by memory the services that the shelter provides, and I build relationships with people, in reality they gave me the sense of returning back to their community.  I was challenged by the residents to accept me in their social groups, and these innocent people open the doors that were once close to me, due to the insecurities of disrespect, and loyalty outsiders provided them. With the patience, and motivations of others volunteers I was accepted by the homeless people.  Sharing my background as a child into adulthood, I was surprised about the homeless people automatically opening up to me sharing their stories, concerns, and goals.

One volunteer in the homeless shelter always inspire me to do more than what I usually do inside the facility.  He taught me thoughly the difficult backgrounds that is inevitable to be ignored from the public to help the people in need.  I personally think that volunteers take an important role to go out of their way taking the extra mile to educate people, and to plan a proposal that can help them maintain, and achieve their goals.  In order to break the cycle of homelessness in the Coachella Valley, someone needs to take the lead to bring public awareness to the communities of the hardships of homelessness, and poverty.  I feel that many shelters have the resources, but do not strive to educate the general public about the importance of getting involved in their community.  As well as the staff not sharing the necessary time to engaged with people to meet their needs.  I am gladly to say that I am happy to be part of this organization to help implement changes that can encourage, fair treatment, and opportunities.