After reading, Tell Them Who I Am, I got a new insight to the way homeless people feel about shelter life. The book goes into detail about the different struggles within shelter life and explains different reasons why people may be homeless. What really got to me was the section about the staff at shelters. The book talks about how women are constantly afraid to be exited from the program because the staff makes sure they are on perfect behavior. The residents can be exited for a variety of reasons, but the staff’s opinion of the person has a big influence. It is hard to think that someone can live their life homeless, with no money and no place to go during the day when the shelter is closed, and being happy and chipper all the time. It makes sense that someone may be grumpy when they get home from a long day in either the heat or the cold. If a person is in a bad mood, however, they will risk the chance of being kicked onto the street with sometimes no remorse. It makes sense that there are rules, but for the shelter to be “jail-like,” doesn’t seem right. They have not committed a crime. They are without a home and need a place to stay for the night.
http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Them-Who-Am-Homeless/dp/014024137X
Do you think there are better or more effective solutions to running a shelter without making it “jail-like”? In some ways I think order and structure allow for a positive change in the lives of homeless people who are forced to live on the streets where disoder runs amuck. I wonder what kind of shelters are more effective- ones run with “prison-like” standards or ones run without very much structure or rules. What would qualify is imperfect behavior? Is there a lot of sexism within the shelter you read about?