After volunteering at a local homeless shelter, I decided to research why many homeless individuals do not want to stay in homeless shelters. Many people assume the homeless do not use shelters because of theft or drugs, but there are a number of reasons. Many of the homeless prefer to sleep on the streets and I ask myself why? Of course, one reason is that there are simply not enough beds available at shelters and a long waiting list. According to author Kylyssa Shay, “In most cities in the US, there’s space for less than 25% of the homeless people living in that city. In some cities, there is room for less than 5% of their homeless population” (Shay 2017).

Another reason why the homeless do not stay in shelters is that the disabled are not always safe. Some shelters will take away walkers, crutches, or canes while they are there. This avoids the chance of them being stolen, but leaves the disabled at a disadvantage.

The homeless do not want to go to the shelters because they have a lack of control. There are strict check-in, sleep, check-out times, etc. These strict rules and regulations can cause them stress and make them feel like they are not in control.

I was shocked to discover some reasons for not staying in a shelter. Thankfully, not all shelters include these downsides. Still, these are things many homeless people have experienced which may have caused them to later avoid using them at all. After researching this, I ask myself if there WERE enough beds available, would the homeless still want to stay in shelters?

https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/why_homeless_people_avoid_shelters

Earlier this week, the Trump administration proposed a vague new idea on how to combat hunger. The proposal issued stated a plan to replace more than 40% of SNAP benefits given to recipients with a “Harvest Box”. These boxes would contain non-perishable foods selected by the government (for the people) and would be distributed monthly. While my initial reaction was positive, it changed quickly after reading certain criticism. The plan offered no specifics on what would be in the boxes and if they would consider food allergies, fussy eaters, SNAP recipients whose addresses often change, and people finding themselves temporarily homeless. I also found myself wondering if the contents of the boxes would require kitchenware like a functioning stove, a microwave, or some type of refridgeration post cooking. What happens near the end of the month when the contents of the box have been used up and no funds are left in benefits?

While the U.S. government should be taking action to fight hunger, I do not think that “Harvest Boxes” are the way to go. They are focusing way too much on agribusiness and less on the people who are actually going hungry. Welfare recipients already have to accept that they’re receiving welfare, and at least they have the power to choose what they buy with their food stamps. By taking away that ability, it offers less control in the lives of welfare reliant individuals and allows for the government to fully take over. The government needs to focus on the wellbeing of the people, not the industries they own.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/15/trump-food-stamps-harvest-box-blue-apron-snap-217004

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/12/585130274/trump-administration-wants-to-decide-what-food-snap-recipients-will-get

I was really struck this week with the multitude of interactions we were able to have with people so knowledgable in the field of homelessness. It was encouraging to come into contact with individuals who have devoted their time and effort to helping and encouraging this marginalized group we have been learning about. After hearing from the San Bernardino County HOPE team, I was left thinking about the potential for these types of programs in other places across the country. After class I talked briefly to my dad, who works for the City of Portland, about the programs in Oregon put in place to address issues of homelessness. They don’t seem to be anywhere as successful or dedicated as the work of HOPE. Now I am  curious about other city and county’s work that may be comparable! I also really enjoyed hearing more information about point-in-time counts, and how they are executed differently all over the place, and more particularly, how they are viewed by the public. One would think that everyone should be in favor of keeping count of their city’s homeless populations, at-least to keep officials accountable for addressing such issues, but as we heard our guest speakers talk about, this is not always the case. I learned  there is so much more to the process of these counts than meets the eye. We can’t forget  about the role economics, politics, and society all play. Later in the week I also had an incredibly informative meeting with two individuals who are very  active in the nonprofit scene here in Redlands. We talked about homelessness, social services, and the idea of community. During this meeting, I could really tell that this class has already taught me so much. I was able to have a thoughtful and informed conversation about these topics with true experts.

This week we focused on homeless counts. On Wednesday, we got to listen to two guest speakers discuss Point-In-Time Counts, including the issues with these counts. Misrepresentation is common with counts, because if not properly administered (or cared for enough), the numbers representing people without homes could be much smaller than reality, which then make the issue look like less of a problem. Counts also cost an insane amount of money, and the cost varies greatly. Point-In-Time counts are not funded and depend on private funding or sponsors. These counts were described as “inherently political”, which makes sense, because based on the political atmosphere of a community, certain information can be shared or withheld to fit a certain agenda.

For our second data exercise, I looked at the homeless counts from 2 SoCal cities that I am very familiar with. I live in Highland (a neighboring city to Redlands), and out of the 1,866 homeless people accounted for in 2017 in all of San Bernardino County, only 35 of these people were in Highland. I find this number low, and I think it’s due to Highland and San Bernardino’s border and homeless people crossing it so often. It would be hard to determine which city these people belong to. If you visited West Highland, you would see why 35 is a low number. San Bernardino is literally right next door, and had 491 reported homeless. The other city I picked was Anaheim, where most of the homeless were found near the Anaheim/Fullerton border. This is generally a poorer part of town. 80% of sheltered homeless in Anaheim are women, and 71% of unsheltered are men. 906 people were accounted for in total, and I mainly focused on the Disneyland area since that’s what I know best. There are actually many homeless people living right around Disneyland, but people certainly do not think about that. Disneyland is associated with happiness and wealth (I mean, have you seen those ticket prices?) but this just further proves that homelessness is all around, in rich areas and not. We just let it go unnoticed, and inaccurate homeless counts do not help us see the real issue.

CITATIONS: Highland Homeless Count Info– http://wp.sbcounty.gov/dbh/sbchp/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/08/2017-SBC-Prelimi nary-Point-In-Time-Count-Report.pdf

Anaheim Homeless Count Info– https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/14920

This past week in class was unique in the sense that we were able to listen to different speakers. On Monday, we had the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department come in who are a part of the Homeless Outreach Program in San Bernardino. We also had a Skype conference with call with two experts who specialize in homeless counts. Both sets of speakers were incredibly interesting and I was able to learn a lot more information from them. From the San Bernardino Sheriffs’ I learned a lot about different costs. I did not realize that instead of dialing “911” when you encounter a homeless person and think something may be wrong, you should dial “211,” which is a homeless outreach program who will send someone to help. The reason to call the “211” number is because it cost tax payers less money. I know I was completely unaware, as I am sure many other people are, the cost for emergency vehicles just to respond to a call and not utilize anything but their vehicles. If you call “911” about a homeless person, they more than likely will dispatch an ambulance, fire truck, and police officer. I learned that just to run a fire truck it cost $300 each time they turn it one. That is a lot of money and more often then not the homeless person is just sleeping because they do not want sleep at night because it can be dangerous. Also, according to the San Bernardino fire station they receive on average 15 calls a day and half of them are for homeless. That is over $2,000 that is being used just on a fire truck alone to respond to a call they probably are not needed for. While talking to the homeless count experts, I learned how much money went into homeless counts. It can be anywhere from $1,000 to nearly a million dollars. I was surprised by this because I do not understand why it cost this much. I personally do not understand why the money they are using towards homeless counts, if it truly is that expensive, why they cannot use that money to build more shelters or even just provide a meal to the homeless instead. If I was homeless I personally would rather have money used to buy me a meal rather then it being to train someone to put down a tally mark when they walk past me once a year.

This past week we discussed the many causes of homelessness and divided these influences into two categories: personal and structural. Personal being alcohol/drug abuse, mental illnesses, disabilities, and family tragedies. Structural including housing losses, hospital closures, changes within the job market, and lowered social support. This helped me open my eyes to the realities of homelessness: not every person whom “resides” on the streets was driven there by their personal choices to engage in illegal actives (drug/alcohol abuse, etc). Today many individuals admit there are issues dramatically arising with the quantity of homeless individuals, yet these people prefer to believe the government systems are indeed benefiting these individuals at every cost. Is that always the case?

It seems that policies tend to “help” the homeless community by forcing them out in order to “better” the existing city. Not every homeless individual was driven by alcohol, drugs, or mental incapabilities. Policies, unequal wages, de-institutionalization, divorce, unemployment, etc. are all impacting the rates of poverty, just as addictions.

This horrifying realization brings me to promote an opportunity to help the homeless community (Community being these homeless individuals who, in fact, do share the same place to call “home” and personal characteristics. Home is the streets to most of these people). This week students will be tabling outside of the commons during breakfast and lunch hours in hopes of receiving donations. Donations include clothes, non-perishable food, and unopened toiletries. These items will be provided to an agency, who shall not be named, that strives to help homeless individuals. After donations, this group will deliver the items on Friday February 16th and help cook/serve meals for anyone who turns to this camp/agency for guidance. Students are more than welcomed to donate items AND volunteer for meal prep. This seems like a great opportunity for students to get involved with the homeless community in order to realize the strong influence that take over each life. If you want more information on this opportunity please reach out to me! jordin_lowes@redlands.edu

The most surprising thing to me this week was that there is so much debate around how many homeless there are. It seems like a really simple thing to calculate but it’s not. The definitions of homelessness impacts it a lot because this can include things like: people living in cars or RVs, “welfare” hotels, people in jail who would be homeless, detox centers, and runaways in foster care. These are people that should be considered and included when thinking of policy changes, but are often left out. It so vastly changes the conversation around homelessness because that number is a quick statistic that stands for how pervasive this problem is.

The second thing that stood out to me in class this week was when we talked about personal susceptibility and how it relates to homelessness. Things like addiction, mental illness, disabilities, injuries, and family tragedies are each buffers that if removed puts you at a much higher risk for being on the street. This poses some interesting political questions like if we were to prioritize mental health care what kind of impact would this have on our homeless population? (Christopher Jencks cited this as one of the main reasons homelessness has been on the rise) We could also spend money on things like working to prevent and treat addiction, disability and injury services, and providing family services with the money and resources currently going into putting people in jail overnight for sitting on the sidewalk.

I found interest in the article “Who’s Able-Bodied Anyway”  by Emily Badger. In the article Badger brings up the term “able-bodied” and the existing controversy over what the word means and who it entails to. In this discussion, Badger mentions the Trump administration by saying, “they are effectively everyone left, and they have become the focus of resurgent conservative proposals to overhaul government aid, such as one announced last month by the Trump administration that would allow states to test work requirements for medicaid.” In addition to this, Badger makes the point that “there is no standard for physical or mental ability that makes a person able”.  Towards the end of the article, Badger makes one more statement being “the food stamp program does identify a group called able-bodied adults without dependents. But Medicaid makes no mention of them.”

With everything stated above, I have concluded that people in the government and positions of power have used the term “able-bodied” to target a certain group of people who society deems as too lazy or just unwilling to work. These people, near homeless/homeless, who are labelled by the circumstance they do not inhabit, are put in a specific category just because of it. Things like this include “not disabled, not elderly, not children, not pregnant, not blind.” These people, the able-bodied, are judged and mistreated by people who may or may not acknowledge their position is the result of inequality in systems and institutions. Other factors can be conditions not recognized important by society, such as depression, anxiety, etc.

Even though Governor David Ige declared a state of emergency in Hawaii to deal with homelessness in 2015, 51 out of every 10,000 Hawaiians are still homeless today. On an island chain that thrives off tourists, it is understandable to know that state funding is going toward the tourism industry and not low-income housing projects. The matter is, however, that “Hawaii is the worst state for per capita homelessness in the country, and ties with California for the second-highest percentage of unsheltered homeless youths”. A study done on the island of Oahu showed that youth homelessness starts as early as the age of 14 with more than half the interviewees having parents with substance abuse problems or parents who are incarcerated.

The article I was reading about Hawaii reminded me of a privilege that many of us have in the continental U.S. If we aren’t happy where we are located, most of us can easily get up and move to a new location by car, plane, or train. Traveling expenses through the United States do not amount to too much. Hawaii has a different story, however. The youth that find themselves homeless may have family members on the mainland but no means to pay the $500 plane ticket to resituate themselves. Instead, they are left to make ends meet on an island with an incredible cost of living. This leads to these homeless youth to engage in “survival sex” and carrying out other acts in exchange for food, shelter, or money.

While Hawaii’s government has announced plans to make homelessness a priority in 2018, I’m left wondering how anyone is supposed to survive in Hawaii when the cost of living is so high and most of the focus is on the tourism industry. I often vacation in Hawaii and will be viewing their situation a little differently the next time I go.

http://www.newsweek.com/youth-homelessness-age-hawaii-802825

Our next course topic discusses homeless counts. During research on this topic, I came across an article titled “SF homeless count: What it’s like, and why it’s flawed” by Caille Millner. The author discusses her debates with others about if a man was indeed homeless or not during the SF homeless count. They argued that his jacket was too nice to belong to a homeless man, but the author argued that he looked like a drug addict and was obviously homeless. They debated over every person they came across. Who is to know if they are actually homeless? And how did they come to an agreement? I was curious why the coordinators told them to not ask if they were homeless.

Millner stated that the volunteers, including herself, “are forced to make judgments about other people’s poverty” (Millner, 2017). This was difficult for me to accept because I feel that these are the people who are trying to help the homeless, yet they stereotype them as well. Is there a way to count the homeless without stereotyping and judging these human beings?

Many of the books we have read in this course, tell us to stray away from this stereotype, yet these homeless counts do the opposite. I feel that volunteers participating in homeless counts need to be better educated about the homeless. I am curious if there are certain standards that a homeless person has to have to be counted. If I ever participated in a homeless count, I would wonder if I was right or wrong in my count.