Category Archives: About being poor

LA Going Against Human Rights

About being poor

In our class last Wednesday we spent the last five minutes going over articles from LA Times that completely contradict each other. One article states that LA is moving forward with their housing first program and other program to alleviate homelessness, while the other exposes the brutality that police and city officials are enabling by taking away the belongings of the homeless people in LA and completely destroying their personal items.

In an editorial from the LA Times in between these articles lies the fight back against the taking of homeless peoples possessions. Over the last year this editorial states that LAPD has removed up to 1,355 tons of material owned by homeless people. This caused an uproar in social activist groups and social service organizations so much so that another lawsuit was filed March 14th stating that taking away the valuables of homeless people violates human rights and the only reason the city should be taking away any items of homeless people is if it causes a threat to the city. We also discussed during class that they have been able to store homeless peoples items once confiscated to specific storage spaces and the person has 90 days to retrieve their items. Once again the lawsuit states that this has not been put into effect considering they destroy homeless peoples items and then arrest them for stolen items when no proof is given to do so. Incarcerating the homeless does not do the city or the person any good and is a step in the wrong direction.

The city originally was mandated to provide storage and if it could not do so, the homeless person would be allowed to keep their possessions. Clearly we know that this does not stand true and now the city is claiming that all homeless persons must not carry anything more than a backpacks worth of their belongings or a cart if they cannot find storage. This editorial stands as an expose of the LAPD as well as city officials disobeying the laws and mandated rules that they claim to have created for the benefit of homeless people.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-0317-homeless-sweeps-20160316-story.html

California Wage Increase

About being poor, Working poor

In the LA Times yesterday, I read a news article on how California is working towards approving the minimum wage increase to $15.00. For us in this class, this seems like great news considering we know that no one can survive just on the current minimum wage anymore. However, for business owners all over California this is serving as a huge problem. Moving the wage from $10.50 to $15.00 means that their prices need to go up and staff needs to be cut in order to continue paying staff members of their restaurants and businesses. This has been a repetitive cycle for many business owners who just cannot afford to pay their workers higher than they already are unless they have a higher demand for their business and raise their prices. But, the problem I see in this article is not what happens to those who lose their jobs from the wage increase, it is the fact that these owners have people already making $15.00 an hour and cannot afford to pay them even more. It is the lower class competing for higher wages and the same issues we have been seeing time and time again.

When you increase the minimum wage it gives better opportunity for those in the lower class to actually live in decent low-cost apartments, if they can find them, but this is temporary. It is temporary because when you increase wages, prices and demand increases almost in every other aspect of the economy too. If people are getting paid more, housing prices and food prices increase too making it essentially impossible for those in the lower class to make a proper lifestyle for themselves still! Not only are prices going to increase but, staff will be cut in many businesses and the hours of those who don’t get cut may decrease. If you cannot afford to lose your job, or in the case of many in this article, both of your jobs, this wage increase is cause for panic.

If the wage increase occurs and these businesses do make their cuts to employees, it will decrease the job opportunities even more. Hopefully the wage increase will not bring this much negative change with it as the people in this article are suspecting, but I guess we will find out.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-hikes-and-businesses-to-re-engineer-labor-force-some-say-20160327-story.html

On the Streets – Conclusion of a hopeful video series

About being poor, Homelessness, Solutions to Poverty

I have been following the web series “On the Streets” hosted by LA Times contact reporter Lisa Biagiotti as they finish up there twelfth video session to close up the series. Biagiotti seeks out her neighbors Wanda, and more recently, Pepper who have been on the streets for years. Wanda and Biagiotti are close acquaintances ever since Biagiotti struck a conversation with her as Wanda was digging through her recycle bin. Since then, Wanda gives Biagiotti information on her life, and the reality of living on the streets. It was so interesting to see a reporter genuinely interested in the lives of those not spoken for generally in the news.

Wanda in this video introduced Biagiotti to her friend Pepper who had spent years in jail, and on the streets but now is a self-employed truck driver doing well for himself. He was very proud and referred to himself as the “mayor of Skid Row” at one point. He is the only one I believe in the “On the Streets” web series episodes that I have seen that has been self-employed and got himself off the streets.

What I love about these web series episodes is that while Biagiotti is learning aspects of homelessness from her friends and neighbors, she uses this to portray the reality of homelessness to the audience.

She also exposes the situation of her friend Wanda who walks around all day recycling and collecting bottles so she can collect her average of $22.00 a day from the recycling company. Wanda has arthritis in her legs and as Biagiotti notes she has a “swagger” about her because of this. She has no SSI although she has been waiting for the request to be approved. Once she gets the SSI Wanda should be able to at least provide enough support for herself so that she doesn’t have to walk all day long in pain. Situations like this make me confused about why there aren’t programs out there that do more community outreach to find people who need the necessary resources.

Social Support: Loss of Family

About being poor, Causes of Homelessness

Last week at my internship I met one of my case manager’s clients I had been completing paperwork for. I formed the client’s rental packet to assist for the January’s rent, so I was surprised that the client visited us a second time in a month. This client was a single mother of three toddlers with difficult family burdens. When she described her situation and why she was back asking for Redlands Family Services to pay a second month of rent, I wanted to give her the world. She was bright, intelligent, and was her family’s punching bag for all baggage and events that occur within the family. With no one to rely on, she was able to rely on our services. This made me think of the loss of family that some people face that leads them to homelessness. I typically think of death as the tragedy that causes the homelessness, along with other factors, but this time I thought about loss of family from a different perspective. What if the loss of family wasn’t physical but emotional? They are not dead, but emotionally you find yourself unable to connect or feel loved by your family, an outcast essentially. This too, is the type of loss people can face that can lead to financial struggle, emotional instability, and depression/anxiety.

I dwelled on this aspect of family life for a while with my case manager. We discussed how it would feel to be in her shoes. Being kicked down, when you believe things will get better, and having family members tell you “you have failed”. How would I react? Would I have others to rely on? These types of hypothetical questions are often dangerous to think about, but I couldn’t help but reflect on what would happen. I also wonder how many of those who have lost family, have lost family due to death or due to the families unwillingness to help. This emphasizes just how deep the boxes we categorize homelessness as really are in our Hunger and Homelessness course. The main point: everyone is in need of social support.

Keeping Promises

About being poor, Local organizations

For those of us on this rainy day, we are lucky to be sheltered by a roof over our head and a warm blanket, maybe even some hot cocoa. For the homeless of Orange County, my hometown, they are not so lucky. In a recent article published by the OC Register, what was formerly known as the Santa Ana Transit ran by OCTA, will be renovated into a safe haven and emergency shelter for the homeless during the rain. Mercy House, a popular organization that advocates for the homeless, fought hard to win over the space inside the transit and was allotted five months of use, but only when raining. This was after the supposed promises in which the Board of Supervisors had been presented with a petitioned proposal to provide more emergency shelters during El Nino and had agreed to provide more funding and supplies for shelter:

“Supervisors authorized a contract bid on Dec. 8, but seven weeks and several inches of rain later, no new beds are available. ‘The county did not keep its promise to provide those 440 beds,’ said Madeleine Spencer, an activist with Project Homelessness.”

As weather conditions continue to worsen, there has been an increase in activism and even a stronger push to open more permanent homeless shelters in Orange County. Shocked by the reluctance to help, I am hoping for Orange County citizens and organizations to continue pressing the Board of Supervisors and ensure that they receive the $500,000 funds to utilize for the support shelters for the homeless.

You can find the article here: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/county-701855-shelter-homeless.html

Jonah Schepp: “Republicans Get Poverty All Wrong”

About being poor

Here’s an interesting article from Politico about poverty — by someone who’s lived it. Jonah Schepp grew up desperately poor in Manhattan, yet got a good education and ultimately a stable job.  He says, though, that this wasn’t a matter of hard work and gumption; it was “dumb luck”.  He lucked into situations that helped him, just as other folks ‘luck’ into situations that drag them down.  It wasn’t a matter of pulling himself up by his bootstraps.  He writes:

“There’s no denying that poor people make bad choices all the time. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter much because we don’t actually have that many choices to make, economic or otherwise. This, more than anything else, is what our moralizing politicos fail to understand about American poverty: how often we get stuck in situations where we have no options.”

A good read for those who think that poverty is somehow poor people’s fault.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/what-republicans-dont-get-about-poverty-213511

Homeless GoPro: Building Empathy Through Firsthand Perspective

About being poor, Books and Films, How we should treat each other

In recent browsing on the internet I came across a new sociological project starting up in San Francisco, “Homeless GoPro”. The purpose of the project is to help bring empathy and compassion back into human nature in society, including but not limited to situations dealing with the homeless. The Homeless GoPro project is led mainly by Kevin Fadler, an entrepreneur and sociologist, and Adam, a man who has been homeless on and off for the last 30 years. Through their documentary, the two hope to allow people to experience Homelessness and interactions on the street through the completely opposite perspective of what they’re used to. In the first video, “Birthday”, Adam is wearing the GoPro on his chest and attempting to sell “Street Sheet” newspapers. The videio opens with Adam explaining when he spent Christmas on the streets for the first time and how much it hurt. He doesn’t want to have to spend his birthday, which is the next day, on the streets. He tells people passing by that it is his birthday and he’s attempting to sell enough papers to buy himself a hotel room for tomorrow night. As people walk by, the majority either don’t look at Adam at all or, even worse, many people make a rather obvious attempt to look in the other direction and act as if they don’t hear him.

I had my birthday six days ago and cannot imagine having this experience. I was so happy to wake up and have breakfast in bed. Adam isn’t able to have either of these. I felt so much love and compassion from people who walked by and wished me a happy birthday. Adam was telling people about his birthday and they didn’t even respond. As I read the comments on the Yahoo article that feature this project, which I highly recommend you read for yourself, I constantly wanted to yell “F#@k Off” or “You don’t even F@$king know” to the people writing hateful and ill-informed comments. I even had to leave the room where my family was celebrating Easter just to get a breath of fresh air and calm down. How can people be so ignorant and give into so many stereotypes? This class has taught me so much, yet it has also led to so many moments of frustration with humanity.

This project offers a unique viewpoint on Homelessness and also opens the door to a whole new form of studying the world views and experiences of those on the street. While our class is ending, I definitely recommend keeping an eye on this project, as I believe it has great potential.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/homeless-gopro-offers-a-firsthand-perspective-of-those-living-on-the-streets-180947286.html;_ylt=AwrTWVU2U1RTc2gAOELQtDMD

 

http://www.homelessgopro.com/

Hauntingly Beautiful Portraits of the Homeless

About being poor, Books and Films, Homelessness, Portraits of Homeless, Uncategorized

This week, I decided to search for an article pertaining to homelessness that utilized visual elements that could bring awareness to this issue. While traditional style articles can be great ways to spread the word of societal problems, I think that photographs and art forms of expression can have just as significant of an impact. The article that I found incorporated both written and visual elements and focused on photographer Lee Jeffries and his finds during his most recent trip to Miami, Florida. Jeffries describes meeting a homeless woman there who had spent most of her life in the adult film industry and after she no longer was able to do that, she spiraled into homelessness, depression, and addiction. As he states in the article “She understands what she’s doing, she understands the choices she makes. She just doesn’t see a way out. But she’s still a human being who looks out for other people, and the younger girls she stays with, often to the detriment of herself.”

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” really holds true to the photographs that Jeffries has posted of the homeless population, both in this article and his book ‘Lost Angels’. According to the article, it is his goal as an artist to give a face and a voice to overlooked populations. He has photographed poverty stricken individuals across Europe and the US on his personal mission to raise awareness to the oftentimes ignored homeless population.

These pictures say it all, it is almost as though you can see into the soul of the people in Jeffries pictures. Although the article itself was short and to the point, the inclusion of these photographs need no words, as they tell the stories and hardships of these people without needing much description. I think that this type of photography is a great way to raise awareness of homelessness, especially for those who are uncomfortable with it and choose to ignore it in their daily lives. I think it would be impossible to not feel affected by these striking visualizations of what it truly means to be without a home and to be treated without dignity.  As the article states “His style of commercial photography, he understands, “is a small ripple” in the scope of possibility for change, “but it’s significant in terms of what one person can do.”

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/07/margo-stevens_n_5079048.html

 

 

Crime of Homelessness

About being poor, Causes of Poverty, Government programs, Homelessness, Portraits of Homeless, Working poor

It has been interesting to see that most people think that homeless people are in the situation they are in because they are lazy and/or have no work ethic. This being said, for my teaching project, I have been trying to find real stories of people who are trying their hardest to get out of their situation as well as break the societal cycle.

Yesterday, a social reform type blog posted an article that did just that.  Shanesha Taylor is a homeless mother of 2 that was offered an interview. Because she had no one to watch or care for he children, she had me wait in the car. When she was done with the interview, her life became much more difficult. She was then arrested and her children we taken to child protective services. Since the story did not explain why she was homeless in the first place, it still shines a bright light on the issue of single mothers and their poverty level.  The article says that about 1.6 million kids in America are considered homeless and that sets them up for immediate failure as it makes it much more difficult to rise out of it. After hearing this story, many people reached out to Shanesha and donated money for her to help regain her children’s custody. As this situation was not her choice, it shows that society is constructed by giving the unfair advantage to those who need it the most. Now Shanesha and many women in similar situations have to deal with systems that will cost even more money and time. It is sad to think that people get in trouble for being in a situation they have no control over.

http://socialistworker.org/2014/04/02/the-real-crime-is-homelessness

Drug Abuse and the Homeless

About being poor, Homelessness, Poverty

According to class discussions and a number of different readings we have done, substance abuse is not regarded as a high cause of homelessness. It is very prevalent in the homeless community though. I was always interested in how substance abuse effects the homeless community and decided for my blog post this week to do a bit of research into finding out some facts and information.

There are two different types of substance abuse: drugs and alcohol. 38% of homeless were dependent on alcohol with the abuse being more common in the older generation. 26% abused other drugs with it being more common for the younger generation. In addition, it is more common for substance abuse to be prevalent for the homeless population compared to the general population.

This bit of information was surprising to me because it contradicts, or at least says we should pay attention more to, how much of a factor substance abuse is becoming homeless. It sometimes may be a direct reason, or it may tag along other factors. Examples would be if someone was behind on bills, they may drink more, which cause them to fall so far behind they lose their house. There was a 2008 survey by the United States Conference of Mayors asked 25 cities for their top three causes of homelessness and Substance abuse was one of the three for single adults (reported by 68% of the cities). Another statistic is that substance abuse accounted for 12% of the cities for one of the top three reasons for homelessness for families. Lastly two-thirds of the homeless say that drugs and/or alcohol were a major reason for becoming homeless.

More times this abuse is a result of homelessness than a cause. Once becoming homeless, these people turn to alcohol and drugs to try and cope with their situation. In reality it makes it harder for them to function in society and to try to get a job to get back on their feet. If some of the homeless do become sober, there is little success remaining it while on the street. A lot of the treatment programs have an abstinence type programming which is not a very effective strategy and should focus on staying sober and the possibility of relapsing.