Category Archives: Reflections on our Reading

Sacrificing Voice and Fighting False Narratives of Impoverished People

January 29, 2019Poverty, Reflections on our ReadingJohn

As we explore the state of hunger and homelessness in the United States, we lend focus to the working poor. Pushing past opaque and formal language, we take a look at people who work an incredible number of hours (if they are lucky enough to get them), in unacceptably unstable environments, who do not have the luxury of making “rational” decisions, and must employ an unparalleled level of non-traditional knowledge to simply survive in the wealthiest country on earth.

In the effort to survive, these people sacrifice their voice – both in their rightful place in their democracy and in the stories that are told about them. Thus, elected officials and policies are disconnected from the needs and realities of this growing group which fosters a system that is increasingly hostile to them. Yet, this group isn’t even afforded the luxury of being ignored. They become Reagan’s unifying enemy: the welfare queen. A term that evokes images of ease, relaxation, and luxury which couldn’t be less representative of the 13,251,400 Americans who were food insecure in 2017.

Between the loss of control over their own narrative and the physical barriers our society puts between the poor and everyone else, we must actively combat the seductive narratives that it’s solely the fault of the poor that they got there or remain there. This course has offered us several resources to deconstruct the narratives that have been created about the poor including the Invisible People YouTube site, Barbara Ehrenreich’s popular book – Nickel and Dimed, and many well-written articles. The pathos in these people’s life story combined with a structural look at the mechanisms of poverty paints a much more complete and empathetic understanding of what it means to be impoverished in the United States of America.

Complaining goes a long way

March 31, 2014Government programs, Homelessness, News link, Organizations, Reflections on our ReadingAndrea

In an article posted yesterday by USA Today, benefits from the VA was re instated for those who had “less than honorable discharges.” After recently revisiting their eligibility statements, they quietly removed this category of recipients away. Additionally, this past December, the VA cut finances to their support program as well as cutting transitional housing for those who served less than 24 months as well as less than honorable discharge. More often than not, the veterans that fall into this category do not receive VA benefits therefore making them unable to receive benefits from homeless programs, or so the VA decided.

Once people heard of this change, they saw it quite contradicting to the goals that Obama had set in his State of the Union address earlier this year. Senators, advocates, support groups, social welfare organizations and more all saw the heartlessness in the VA’s actions. In response, the VA said a law has to be created to change rules. On Friday, Senator Murray, who sits on the Budget Committee, from Washington, created and presented legislation on this topic. “In the meantime, Robert Petzel, the VA’s undersecretary for health, restored support for all homeless veterans who had previously been receiving it.” About 1 in 10 veterans who live on the street have “less than honorable discharges” and almost 60,000 veterans in general are homeless. Not all veterans are immediate homeless; due to post dramatic stress syndrome, abuse, and life events, some become homeless after years of being back from their tour.

This article touched me because it is amazing to see what can happen when people feel like there has been injustice. Especially when a group that was subject to these changes does not have the strength to fight back, it is amazing what the power of voices can do to help make a positive change. From our reading of Book of the Poor, we saw many organizations are out there to aid people and offer them the best well-being they can. In this case, many people and organizations are out there to support veterans everywhere.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/29/homeless-veterans-va-denied-support-ptsd-discharge/7013129/

Solving Homelessness or the Homeless Blemish?

March 24, 2014Homelessness, How we should treat each other, News link, Reflections on our Reading, Solutions to HomelessnessSamantha

There is a “dash movement taking place in Santa Cruz, California. According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel article, “’Dash’ deployed for solving Santa Cruz Country Homelessness”, the multi-agency cooperative 180/180 Initiative has a goal of offering “180 people a 180 degree life change” by a deadline of July 1st. A secondary goal was also created to place 25 of the city’s most visible homeless people, along with a group of 12 from Watsonville, on a course towards permanent supportive housing within 100 days by May 7^th. The 100-day dash plan is a specialized tool that gives partnering agencies and officials who wouldn’t usually get involved a finite timeline and achievable goal.

Although this project sounds promising, with 8 people currently being helped and two already housed in Watsonville, there seems to be the same lingering goal to get the chronically homeless away from the downtown commercial areas where they reside. Homeless Services Center Executive Director Monica Martinez is even quoted in the article saying “Everybody has their reason why (they want to get the homeless off the streets), but we all agree we want it to happen.” This reminds me of Wasserman and Clair’s book At Home on the Street: People, Poverty, and a Hidden Culture of Homelessness, and how their participants discussed how the programs shouldn’t be pushed upon them and that they should be choices. My interpretation of this article seems as if this plan isn’t entirely for the homeless’ best interest, but to remove them from living in commercial areas where their presence isn’t wanted, which was an issue also raised in the book. These chronically homeless people they are “helping” are not being seen as people, but as a blemish on the downtowns of Santa Cruz and Watsonville. As much as this would like help out the homeless community, I fear that it is not enough to solve the chronic problem.

“Keep your coins, I want change”

March 24, 2014About being poor, Homelessness, Reflections on our Reading, Solutions to HomelessnessJoline

“Keep your coins, I want change”. This is something that truly stuck out to me during one of the presentations last week. This statement speaks great volumes about the needs of the homeless. Coins do not do anything, but change does. Between this and our conversations in class, I was able to recognize the resources that would benefit the homeless. Through various organizations, help centers are offered to teach life skills to those who are homeless. There resources are aiming to provided life lessons, skills, and goals to make a lasting impact. It related to the metaphor: “If you give a man a fish you feed him once, but if you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a life time”. This is the kind of action that needs to be taken.

Having resources such as resume building, job skill training, and educational classes we are offering needy people the chance to have a life that they are in need of. I feel this needs to go beyond local non profit organizations and have a bigger impact within the government. A great population of our country is homeless, and sometimes it seems like many options are not put into full force to make a lasting impact. We have learned a lot about how one person can make a difference with their voice, but actions are louder than words. I hope to find out more information, especially from my internship, and see exactly what they are doing within these resources and seeing the lasting impact that they have on people finding jobs and getting off of the streets.

Problematic Discourse

March 24, 2014About being poor, How we should treat each other, Local organizations, Organizations, People, Poverty, Reflections on our ReadingMichelle

On Saturday I worked at my internship organization’s weekly food bank and observed discourse about poverty.

At my organization, there are “food box runners” who carry out the boxes to the clients’ cars or wherever they wish. These runners are usually male volunteers who can lift a decent amount. I recognized the some of the same people doing it as last week, but there were new volunteers doing this job. One of the senior volunteers (or one of the pastors, I’m not exactly sure) within the organization was explaining what these runners needed to do. I overheard parts of the explanation, and there were one huge red flag. The volunteer, Bob*, said what I expected him to say, smile and be respectful, but then I heard him say “These people come here with low self-esteem and depression. They don’t want to be taking these boxes but they have to.” Bob already had preconceived notions about these people, and it made me think about the discourses of Lyon-Callo’s book Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance and other discourses that we’ve been discussing in class. My organization proclaims to be giving people a sense of dignity, but this struck me as problematic because you don’t give dignity to people by assuming that they have low self-esteem and depression; it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and I think it skews the way you view the clients. Those runners likely behaved differently toward the clients than if they hadn’t been told that. If I had been in Bob’s position, I would have just told the runners to be respectful and kind like I would tell any other person working at my organization. I wouldn’t add the problematic discourse additionally.

“Homeless Seen as Deviant”

March 24, 2014Homelessness, Reflections on our ReadingCara

Vincent Lyon-Callo’s, Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance, discusses some of the structural issues that cause homelessness. One particular issue that stuck out to me was the second chapter discussing “Medicalizing Homelessness”. Medicalizing homelessness basically means that homelessness is a disease that cannot be cured and that it is the individual’s fault that they are homeless. We often think that shelters are constructed to reduce homelessness; however, some of the times the shelters are perpetuating homelessness.

For example, shelters often create step by step programs for homeless who are drug or alcohol addicts. As helpful as they are to get people off these substances, they are not getting them away from the main source of distribution, which are the streets. These step by step programs are not helping these addicts get off the streets so that they can get away from the easy accessible drugs on the streets.

In addition, shelters individualize homeless by telling them that they are homeless because of something that has happened in their lives, whether it was by choice or not. For example, some homeless are being told that they are homeless because they were sexually abused. This is not something that they chose, also it is not the reason they are homeless. These shelters are saying to the homeless that they are trying to fix them.

Lyon-Callo writes, “These practices produce “the homeless” as deviant” (Lyon-Callo 59). The homeless are being individualized to the point where they are considered deviant from the rest of society. This is partially caused by the ways in which shelters are running their services.

Homeless with a Home

March 18, 2014Homelessness, People, Reflections on our ReadingJoline

After reading At Home on the Street, by Jason Wasserman and Jeffery Clair, I was shocked and impressed by the measures they took within their experience with the homeless. In this book, authors tell the story of their journey and methodologies they used. They lived among the homeless on the streets and were able to form relationships with them. One leading question was why did they choose to live on the streets and not in a shelter. They chose the streets because they were able to choose where they slept and were able to get the full effect of what it truly is like to be homeless living on the streets.

I found this to be commendable of Wasserman and Clair and believe they took the right approach in their research. In addition, they were able to build relationships/friendships with fellow people on the streets and hear their stories. Also, they felt that living on the streets was safer than living in shelters which I thought was unexpected. May people think that sleeping in the shelter is the safer option but in reality there are a lot problems with crime and violence within shelters making it an unsafe environment. In addition, you may not get to choose were you sleep in the shelter, unlike the streets. In the book, it was explained that people who were living on the streets did have a home, it just did not seem like a home to outsiders. Many had a constant resting spot that they would go to every night and that was their home. I found his to be very powerful and eye-opening.

Here is a look to purchase the book:

http://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Street-Poverty-Homelessness/dp/1588267016/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395134115&sr=8-1&keywords=at+home+on+the+street

Homelessness and Respect

March 17, 2014Books and Films, Homelessness, Reflections on our ReadingSamantha

In Jason Adam Wasserman and Jeffrey Michael Clair’s book At Home on the Street: People, Poverty, and a Hidden Culture of Homelessness, they provide a thorough recount of their ethnographic methodology and findings. In their second chapter, Accessing a Hidden Population, it is discussed how important it was for Wasserman and Clair to be accepted into the homelessness community’s “private property” of Birmingham, Alabama’s, Catchout Corner. Although Catchout Corner is the city’s public property, this was the first time I had ever heard of a homeless community referred to as having private property. How can they have private property of they cannot afford it? Yet, the researchers had this understanding that this space did, in fact, belong to their homeless participants and they had to be accepted into their homes.

This was almost threatened by the drug dealers that provided and employed some of the homeless participants. Not only did the dealers believe that the researchers would harm their business, but the homeless participants also advised for them to leave the Corner. Luckily, Wasserman and Clair were not intimidated and decided to return to the homeless community. That is how they gained the participants’ respect. I felt that this bit of information about their approach and experience represents the way they went about their entire project. It was interesting to see the homeless participants in a position of respect, instead of pity or other negative emotions that are usually seen. It made me wonder if people viewed the homeless as worthy of respect, how much of a difference that would make in decisions that are made for them.

Reflection on Martha Burt’s “Strategies for Reducing Street Homelessness”

March 16, 2014Homelessness, Reflections on our Reading, Solutions to HomelessnesssolutionsCara

After reading Strategies for Reducing Chronic Street Homelessness by Martha Burt I have a better understanding of what we, as a community should do to lower the number of homeless. This report goes through and thoroughly discusses steps to take in order to reduce homelessness. Some questions asked to make sure that communities are trying to reduce their number of homeless. For example, does the community have a long-term plan, is there an approach implemented, how is the approach funded, does implementation include efforts of community members? These questions enhance the information that the HUD is attempting to understand.

The HUD believes that if they can receive information to these questions they will better understand what needs to be done in each community to reduce chronic homelessness. The answer to each of these questions will determine what the community can do to lower their number of homeless people. If a community is serious about these steps and focuses on these questions they will most likely reduce their community’s chronic homelessness.

There were seven communities studied in this project where many community members were interviewed. During this study they found five key elements that were prevalent in each community, which explained their chronic street homelessness. One key element was that across the board there was a shift in the goals of homeless assistance programs. I believe this should be the main concern of the HUD. The old goals of the assistance programs were to provide transitional housing and emergency shelters, with no real intention of ending homelessness. The paradigm shift has happened in several of the communities studied, which is more of a focus on ending homelessness by getting others involved to help such as businesses and public agencies.

This report helps us to see what needs to be accomplished to get closer to ending chronic street homelessness. It displays communities who are working in the right direction and also communities that need to put in more effort.

Link to reading : http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1000775.pdf

SOAN 324: Hunger & Homelessness in America

University of Redlands, Spring 2019 — Prof. Jim Spickard, Course Leader