I read an article recently that was refreshing and also uplifting. The article talked about the Dignity museum, a new museum in a parking lot in Atlanta. The museum is far from traditional, as it it held in a shipping container. The museum is about creating more understanding surrounding homelessness. The first room challenges stereotypes through storytelling, showing that anyone can become homeless, as well as how difficult it is to escape the situation. In another room, the museum uses virtual reality to try and give visitors a peak into what it could look like to be homeless. It also shares stories told by homeless people, while also learning about statistics and issues such as affordable housing. The last room is meant to give people the motivation to go out and do something about the issue. The director of the museum says that we often put all this stuff on government, but sometimes if we want to truly get something done we need to take the issue into our own hand. Since the museum is in a shipping container, it could move to other cities. Seeing stuff like this truly opens your eyes to all the creative ways people can learn, and it makes me hopeful for the future.

This week in class we began with the jigsaw presentations of our required reading. Each group in class was assigned a chapter to read and present to each other. By doing this we were able to present the chapters how we understood it and present the key points of every chapter. The book went through various problems that organizations and the homeless people themselves face in a system that isn’t solving homelessness on a large level but on an individual one.  Our chapter mainly wrapped up every issue in the book, laid them out in a simply but efficient way. It then went into the individuals who work into those organisations and later how to solve homelessness itself.

Later in the week two groups presented their group B presentations. Both essentially were historical accounts of homelessness from its very beginning, the beginning of the United States (after the war of 1812 etc.) to modern day.

blamed racial discrimination, economic downturn and the inability to afford housing for modern homelessness. Our book went into further detail, specifically in New York. We saw how these people were living and the legislation that had to go into affect in order to see how homeless citizens got the housing they needed. There was few major cases that caused a major change in how these people were treated. Various civil rights groups and national advocacy was the reason that they were given the shelters and things they needed just to survive in that city on a daily basis.

This week in the classroom we performed our first Jigsaw lesson. In this, we each were assigned a chapter in a text and in groups we drew that the chapter was detailing on large sheets of paper. Once we felt as though out chapter was thoroughly detailed we presented the chapter to the class. My chapter was detailing recounts of the struggles of deciding who gets a bed and how doesn’t. A main point of the chapter was the idea of the employees being forced to play God. They were making huge decisions based on small bias aspects such as personal friendliness or believability. Other individuals’ chapters contained aspects such as case study’s and more personal recounts of experiences.

All in all, the Jigsaw activity was beneficial in helping the students to understand and even to teach the material. Some of the other chapters mimicked what mine did but one aspect that a few others spoke about that I hadn’t read previously were the personal recounts of the individuals who needed to utilize the shelter. One group had explained that a woman who stayed in the shelter consistently had feelings of the workers making her feel incompetent or not valued as a person. They would demand that she recognize that she had a mental illness even though she felt as though her sadness and feelings were completely justified for a mentally healthy individual.

The homeless count just keeps going up, yet we still aren’t solving this huge problem in our societies.  Learning about the “half-hearted” effort being put into counting our homeless before is sad, because it is a problem that could have already been addressed with extreme care and  attention.  Finding affordable housing is still a struggle, and when it is found it’s usually far away from the job we need to afford the housing.  Yet again we don’t try and lower the prices, we raise them instead because of how greedy society has become.  As I’ve stated before, there is enough money in the world held by the one percent alone, too end homelessness three times over; and still have money left over.  Society has evolved with technology, becoming consumed with appearance and status, all the while losing their sense of humanity.  Losing sight of what makes us one and brings us together in unity as one common people.  Just to get likes on a social media post or to rack up our money to afford the life that we think we want because of social media.  Inflated cost of goods as well as all living needs are absurd, and resulting in a lot more hungry families besides homeless.  I just want to know when city people are going to stop being so selfish, and allow organization and other service providers to help the homeless in the areas they are in.  No more moving the homeless back & forth, city to city, and hoping the next city will solve the problem.  The only way anything will get done is if we take action and are allowed to take action.  Only sad thing is, we shouldn’t need to ask or have permission to better the economy and the people like us, that just had the short end of the stick.

This week in the classroom we all discussed our progress at our internships. Many different experiences and obligations were explained.  One spoken about was the experience of an individual that works with an organization who picks up food that would otherwise be thrown away and drop it off at other organizations. The student explained that the food is donated by places such as the grocery store of fast-food restaurants. The food from the grocery stores is food that has gone past its best by date by is still good and safe to eat. It was stated that there was a law passed recently that mandates that such grocery stores must donate goods in this condition. During the presentation, the individual explained how they were assisting the organization in recording all of their information down on to spreadsheets all collected on a database to allow others to access the information and to prevent the loss of critical information. This was explained to be a mandatory step in the progress of this organization because if the information stayed in just the minds of the individuals then the company could not progress or continue if another individual attempted to come in a take control.

The idea that the homeless are the problem in our society is twisted. Our society is the problem with homelessness. We could sit around and provide top of the line shelters, take in every homeless person off the streets. Give them three meals a day, nice clothing, and some how cure every alcohol and drug related issue between them all and we would still be faced with the same problems. Our society needs to work on implementing changed with the hierarchy that exists in America. Minimum wage jobs do not support individuals, let alone those with families. The housing market continues to increase, and equality just a bunch of garbage. Minimum wage needs to not be a minimum, and if it is really understood that there needs to be a minimum it needs to become one that people are able to live off of. Rent and prices for housing needs to be capped. The rich continue to get richer and housing is a huge reason why. As for equality, although we believe our society has evolved to become more accepting we have a lot further to go. People need to look at our society and the hierarchy that exists if we want to work towards actually making a dent in the homelessness crisis that is occuring.

Lately, I’ve been reading Down and Out, on the Road. The book begins with an incredible data driven analysis of homelessness in America beginning before the formation of the U.S. The author, Kusmer, highlights how persistent the issue of homelessness is and tracks the public attitudes to it. Kusmer links much of the early homelessness to indentured servitude.

America was marketed as the land of infinite opportunity. Unlimited land and resources meant anyone could go and start anew. To finance their trips, many members of the lower-classes agreed to become indentured servants – working for a set time once they arrived. Citing diminishing upward-mobility after 1800, Kusmer highlights the high rate of homelessness and public assistance needed by previous indentured servants.

The attitudes and historical approaches to homeless populations was perhaps the most interesting part of the book. Kusmer argues that in the early part of American history, much of the public’s view of the homeless was informed by Protestantism. The emphasis on work-ethic lead people to have harsh views of the homeless. Although in some places, there was some form of public assistance, many areas had policies to drive the homeless out.

The lack of evolution in our ideas surrounding homelessness is shocking. Following the formation of the United States, the approaches to homelessness became very similar to what we see today. Large charitable organizations were setup to offer assistance to the poor. While some organizations gave indiscriminately, many delineated between the deserving and undeserving poor. The ideology of making homelessness uncomfortable as to encourage them to better themselves existed then and was in full swing. Through the decades, many saw that the issue did not improve, yet no national adjustment to our approach appeared. This is likely due, in part, to the idea that homelessness is an unsolvable issue. Kusmer identified a number of instances in which cities, officials, and citizens expressed this point of view.

For anyone looking for an in-depth, data driven overview of homelessness, how they were viewed by the public, and the assistance efforts, Kusmer’s Down and Out, on the Road is an excellent resource with a massive index of supporting data.

There are many issues in the system concerning people who are disadvantaged with housing. One of them being there are short term solutions to helping those who need them, but really, there is no one trying to re-think the problems systemically to help bring down the number of people who are homeless. I feel all the short term plans that are happening here in Redlands, like the cold weather shelter, food banks, and clothe drives for homeless, are all completely necessary. However, I feel that there needs to be something else being ran, or having the beginnings, to lead to something that can be more of systematic change. I am working with Ed Torres, and we are trying to figure out how to accomplish this. We are getting in contact with other local agencies to collaborate with, and also trying to use resources which are already available to us. However, I don’t think one organization, or even every organization can change the systematic problem of homelessness. I feel this is an issue that needs heavy rethinking of what it means to be homeless in our society, and also needs more help from the government than just a set budget amount. There need to be experts, and people educated on the issue trying to solve this issue.

One of the biggest trends discussed with regards to the public perception of the homeless is the idea many have that the homeless are lazy. Many people believe that those who are homeless could easily find housing or a job, but continue to live on the streets because they are unwilling to put in the work necessary to ‘better themselves’. This perception characterizes homelessness as being a symptom of deviance, and a failure to operate within the confines of social conventions.  In a survey I conducted in Redlands, I saw many examples of such attitudes in the responses I received, some of which are as follows:

“Maybe my belief is harsh but I believe so many are there just because they lack the drive to pick themselves up, work and earn their keep. The effort it takes to carry hundreds of cans to earn a few dollars could be spent finding a real job.”

“…. have no desire to better their lives.”

“I would encourage them to better themselves”

“…majority of people that are homeless choose to remain so…those that are homeless by circumstances beyond their control can find services available to help them with jobs and housing”

I don’t believe in completely absolving the homeless of their own responsibility, because to do so assumes that they  lack agency, but at the same time, placing all of the blame for homelessness at the feet of the homeless seems overly simplistic. I believe, at least to some extent, that people prefer to assume that those who are homeless could stop being homeless at any time, if they were willing to work for it, because this belief allows them to feel that they have no responsibility to help.

Homelessness is a now very  systematic problems that is much harder to fix than most would think. I’ve heard many people say very negative things about homeless. The most frequent ones I hear are, they should just get a job it they act like its hard, If i just give them money they will buy drugs and they shouldn’t have some things like a cell phones or computers .Most having the mentality that if one is homeless they did something to deserve. And it’s sad to think society will not help people and their is so much that can be changed. But political, economical, and societal changes need to be done. After professor Spick was speaking on the connections that need to be made to help more problems be solved, Such as making the organizations communicate with one another and plan out things more with the ones surrounding them. Then he started to explain how each organization is in competition with one another, I started to assume for money. One example that came up was Redlands Family Service Association. In comparison to other services such as  the church, which was closed down. They are an older organization being around for over 120 years, and having the most funds out of all of them. The reason being they don’t offer long term help, like housing or much job help. They only offer food and clothing, which is very helpful but in no world enough to end the problem they so badly want gone.