The book The Value of Homelessness Managing Surplus Life in the United States was a very interesting book to read. My favorite part of the book was the understanding of the river analogy. Are people creating the issue or only helping the problem. You have to ask yourself that question. I also liked in the book when they talked about mental health and chronic homelessness. Creg in the book stated that the homeless mental health just becomes another body in the government system. That made me sad because everyone’s  mental health is very important. When the media shows the homeless they show them as crazy and that is some but not all. Showing this side to it only makes the issue grow instead they should be trying to fix the issue.  Chronic homelessness is when an individual with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more, or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.  I was very happy to see that these numbers are decreasing at a slow but steady rate. The stats that I found were on any given night around 123,790 people are chronically homeless and about 70% of them were living in unfit areas. When the unfit part was added it means that they could not receive help If they needed it or were living next to hazardous areas. Overall the underlining issue to homelessness and how to move forward with it is to build more affordable low income housing. This is a housing issue and could be moving in a positive direction but steps have to be made first. 

While viewing an online lecture for another class, the following quote by American economist Dora Costa came up: “In France, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, one-fifth of the population only had sufficient energy to beg.” As of 2012, there were 141,500 homeless people in France comprising .214% of the total population that year (66 million). Now, in comparing the 25% of people before the Industrial Revolution to the slim fraction of the population in France that is homeless these days, we run into some problems concerning definitions of homelessness. Should we assume that people who have to beg for their food are homeless? I would guess that, generally speaking, the answer is yes, but there are undoubtedly exceptions to such a generalization.
Regardless of definitional issues, .214% of a population is much smaller than that of .25%. What do you all make of this statistic? In the aforementioned lecture, the professor went on to talk about how industrialization has mostly alleviated poverty worldwide. He referenced another quotation that read “The rich became richer, true. But millions more have gas heating, cars, smallpox vaccinations, indoor plumbing, cheap travel, rights for women, lower child mortality…” from Deirdre McCloskey, a professor of economics at the University of Illinois. Our study of homelessness has caused us to, understandably, adopt a rather grim outlook on the condition of the poor and homeless in contemporary life. However, are we really justified in possessing such a perspective, considering how the suffering experienced by poor and homeless people is nothing new, and that modern amenities have perhaps improved such conditions? I mean, peasants in medieval times lived in disease-ridden mud pits! Am I on to something or is the lecture I’ve referenced laced with neoclassical economic brainwashing fluid?
P.S. USC professor of urban economics and public policy Peter Gordon made the online lecture I referenced. The lecture is accessible from Planetizen Courses on planetizen.com, but you need an account to access them… If any of you are interested in watching it, I can provide you with my account info.

It was nice to be able to sit down in class last Wednesday to reflect on what we’ve learned already in this semester. I think it’s so important that we come together and share our opinions, what we think is the most important piece of information we’ve learned, and what to do moving forward. A lot of my classmates stated they felt kind of sad to have learned the intricacies of homelessness and how there isn’t one quick fix. Maybe I’m desensitized to social inequality from my sociology major, but I have found myself feeling quite happy about the information we are learning. There are so many injustices in the United States that seem to have no solutions or even quick fixes. With homelessness, it’s nice to see that the main problem seems to be that there is not enough low-income housing to house everyone and that, in the meantime, the social service work is doing its best. Some of us also reflected on how we can continue the conversation around homelessness. I think we’ve learned that there are enough stereotypes out there that can really damage the homeless population. Now that we’ve learned that they’re not all drug addicts and alcoholics with mental health problems, it’s up to us to step up when we hear people make these generalizations. We will always be uncomfortable with things that seem out of place, and it is understandable why certain people don’t want to see homelessness. However, I think humanizing these people is a step in the right direction. I am looking forward to what the rest of the semester holds and what we will learn next.

P.S. Hope everyone is having a nice Spring Break!

When discussing what we currently know about homelessness, many of us expressed our concern of not knowing how many homeless people there actually are. An inaccurate count is universal because: not all homeless people will be found on the streets, some cities do not count cars or those in shelters, we don’t know how many people are couch surfing / temporarily living with friends or family… it’s impossible to fully know.

We discussed what we think could be done to help alleviate homelessness (there is no 100% cure) and making more housing available was the common main concern. “Affordable” housing is actually not affordable at all, so low-income housing is the better route to take. It is unknown if shelters are a big help, because they act as temporary fixes. They may help some people get off the street for one night or a short period of time, but what about in the long-run? The argument could also be posed that shelters further catalyze homelessness because if people think they have somewhere they can go for free, they may be homeless by choice. I do not think this is a popular thought process, because shelters can be terrible places. In the book “Reckoning with Homelessness”, shelters were described as dirty and violent places, where you can get robbed and beat up even though your peers know you have nothing. Employees of the shelters have been accused of physical and emotional violence. Developing homes that people can actually live in on a minimum wage paycheck is a viable solution.

One topic during the class discussions and guest speakers that truly held an impression on me was the cost of Point-in-Time Counts. Point-in-Time (PIT) Counts are done every two years throughout every county, typically during the last week of January. PITs are unfunded mandates that find multiple sponsors to fund the expenses, the time, and the quality of the count itself and require hundreds of volunteers to participate. The range of cost for a PIT count could be all the way up to a million. For example, the PIT count for Los Angeles count is approximately 600,000 dollars. My big question is does the expenses to conduct a PIT count outweigh the amount of money that is received towards services for the homeless? What if the 600,000 dollars was directly contributed to services and shelter for the homeless community instead of being donated to a middle-man type of service? PIT counts do provide useful and effective information about the homeless community but the fact that the amount of money received for the community does not directly tie to the number of people counted during the PIT does make me wonder. One reason I believe PIT counts do actually benefit the community is the process does prove a correlation between the number of homeless individuals to the effectiveness of the services being provided. If the amount of homeless individuals are declining, thus can prove the services are actually having a benefit to society.

Down and Out, on the Road The Homeless in American History, the book I was assigned for our “Book B” presentations, gives an in-depth historical analysis of homelessness throughout the history of the United States. One thing that struck me about this book is the interplay between voluntary and involuntary homelessness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many people were forced into homelessness due to changing economic realities. As post-bellum America shifted economically people were far less likely to be economic secure. Resultantly, many people adopted train hopping tramp lifestyle as an escape from oppressive economic structures and still more people were forced into economic situations where tramping made more sense. Moreover, seasonal work became very prevalent in the tramp/hobo community. People would work during the winter in seasonal jobs while returning to tramp lifestyles in the summer and spring. In addition, many hegemonic social structures were abandoned in homeless communities. Much of social hierarchy is economically enforced and thus, the author Kenneth L. Kusmer argues that traditional social constructs matter less in homeless communities. During a time when American society was becoming more institutionally segregated “hobo jungles” were arguably some of the most racially integrated communities in the United States. Further, the author reports some evidence of sexual liberation and the removal or weakening of gender constructs. Kusmer concludes then that for many people being homeless is neither a purely voluntary or involuntary state. Instead, being homeless, at least in part, presents a measure of freedom in the opportunity to escape American social and economic forces.

Both of the presentations we listened to this week gave me a greater appreciation for the difficulties of practically correcting this housing problem. The thing that stuck with me with the first presentation on Monday was when the speakers from San Bernardino Homeless Outreach explained how there is an extent to what they can do, based on where the person in need of assistance is psychologically that day. If someone isn’t wanting help it isn’t within their rights to put them in some kind of program, even if it would help. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing because people have the right to make their own decisions; and it isn’t right to assume that people not struggling with poverty automatically know what is best for people in those situations.

On a more positive note, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there is a 211 number you can call for homeless issues. This is both less expensive for the taxpayer and the people who show up to the issue are specifically trained for it. I wish this was a more well-known fact because more people would probably use that number and then we wouldn’t be waiting until someone is a potential danger before alerting authorities. The people talking to us were pretty clearly more conscious about homeless issues than many of the police we have read about. They talking about how charging someone with a misdemeanor is about $1000 and doesn’t fix anything and how there is a current trend of criminalization instead of reintegrating back into society.

In the words of Craig Willse, the author of The Value of Homelessness, “Today, rather than serve the economy by keeping labor happy, healthy, and alive, social programs serve the economy directly as part of the economy, as a social welfare industry” (Willse 46). In this way, he reasons, “surplus populations are not simply left to die, but in their slow deaths are managed by social service and social science industries” (48). In a sense, Willse is arguing that resources which supposedly ensure the wellbeing of people really have a stake in maintaining people’s vulnerability because they profit off of disorder in the economy. (For some reference, I would say that Willse’s argument is very reminiscent of Herbert Gans’ The Positive Functions of Poverty article.)
What do you all think of this? Is this too cynical of a perspective? Are there agencies that are free of this criticism that help the homeless out of pure altruism?
I see obvious parallels between this critique of homeless service agencies and entities that provide mental health support. Our university’s counseling center and Residence Life and Housing branch are both able to exist and profit from the existence of mental health disorders on our campus. Along with about 40 other CA’s and CD’s, I am paid about $ 5,000 as a CA to provide oversight in a dorm and refer students to resources if they need help. In no way am I denying the ways in which both entities help many people every year, I am just questioning if our counseling center and Residence Life and Housing maintain the mental instability of students at all for their own benefit. For example, is our university’s willingness to keep chronically depressed students at school when they are not being productive in class but still ensuring a regular presence in the counseling center best for the student?

This week I really enjoyed our second presentation/conference. It was amazing to hear how they analyze the homeless. To do that they said that you need to know the definition of homeless. In order to do the counts you have to not only check the streets because not everybody gets the opportunity to stay in a shelter for the night but you also check the different care systems and organizational funded shelters. The key components to the counts are timing and well trained volunteers with a guide team. The problem that was being faced with the homeless counts was the volunteers were not meeting expectations. This means that they did not know the area as well as they said they did, they were slaking off, or simply did not show up. The volunteers need to know the area being counted extremely well because they have to check areas that most do not go to. This could be different fields, vacant lots, and parking lots.

I also was very surprised about the counts in Seattle. It it now considered to have the 3rd highest homeless population. they have 11 thousand homeless and about 6 thousand of them are unsheltered. This is a huge amount that the city needs to work on.

This week in class there were two presentations by individuals who interact with the topic of homelessness. Through these presentations I was able to gain a further understanding on topics discussed or assigned in class. The aspects they presented about homelessness and their experiences along with interpretations was the tool in doing that.

Monday’s presentation added so much more context to the issues of the relationships between law enforcement officers and the homeless themselves. It provided a view into the local enforcement in San Bernardino County today, and their methodology of how they interact with the homeless. The present methods gave direction to where the book ” Down, Out, and Under Arrest…” by Forest Stuart left off, describing how therapeutic policing influenced  the lives of the homeless, specifically on Skid Row.

Prior to Wednesday’s class we had to complete Data Exercise # 2. For the exercise I examined the methods for point in time counts, in Ventura and LA counties. During this I had a lot of questions regarding how money was used, who decides what way is the right way to count, and who gets surveys or doesn’t. Through the presentation many of my questions were answered and overall I understood how things were executed prior to the homeless count in each city. I learned that money was allocated through sponsors, count methods depend on who’s running it which can be outside organizations. The biggest concept I carried away and what appears evident in success in varying methodology for counts based on the community.