In one of the books read this past week, it talked a little about “truly poor” versus “allegedly poor.”  I didn’t know what this meant and I guess I don’t know exactly what makes someone truly poor.  Where does one draw the line between allegedly poor and truly poor?  After the in-class activity of trying to create a budget under about $1,485, I saw how difficult it really is to choose what you want to use your money for and how you can go about saving it.  My group was not able to save any of our money.  Growing up very privileged it was hard to think of the most efficient ways to live our “poor” lives month to month.

I thought that this budget was insane to work with.  I would consider it truly poor but maybe its not.  There are people with even less.  I just cannot imagine the time it takes to be poor.  There is so much thought and effort put into it that I had no clue about.

I understand better that people can lose a lot (if not all) hope in themselves given the circumstances.  I would be tired of all that effort everyday, too.  As discussed in class, I think that hope is a big thing to have.  Without hope they may never see a glimpse of light.  It’s sad to think that they don’t want to see that light.  However, I do not blame the poor for not wanting to see the light, especially after learning about the Hurricane Katrina event.  The fact that the rescue team didn’t bother to check every nook and cranny makes me sick.  I am beginning to think that maybe society needs to show hope.

I wonder what could happen if society stopped separating being poor into two categories; if they recognized that poor is just poor; that we show that there is hope for them, they would have more hope in themselves.  Maybe even strive to get out of poverty and create an upwards spiral, instead of downwards one.

Family is a word that means something different to each individual. To some it is those who share your blood, who are family, to others it is those who have played a large and supportive role in their life. If someone is your family, doing whatever it takes to protect and support them usually comes with the title. But how far will you go for your family? Would you rob a super market so your kids could eat? Would you sell drugs so that you could provide a home for your family? Would you do something to save or protect your family and the ones you love even if it meant landing you in a concrete cell?

This thought is not one that you would think your average person would have to consider. But in fact, there is a large population of people, who are under recognized, who face this question everyday. These people are the homeless, the people who live in poverty, who each day struggle to find where their next meal will come from, or where they will sleep each night. There are stories about women who even though they know what they are doing is illegal, steal food so that their kids can eat. There are people out there for whom drugs or prostitution are their only options for their survival or the survival of their family. We place judgments on these people, assuming that their illegal ways are product of them being “bad people.” But if you took the time to stop and ask these people their story, you would discover that many of these “bad people” are doing these things because they are trying to stay afloat and to help the ones they love.

In Kenan Heise’s Book of the Poor a quote by a women named Virginia caught my attention. Speaking in the context of the lack of skill promoting programs that are offered to women who are locked up she said “And without skills how can we get jobs? One alternative is to take what we need. I am not going to sit by and see my babies hungry and do without. If I have to go to jail for that, I’m going to.” This quote was very powerful to me, because it took the meaning of family to a whole new level. We all joke about saying that we would “ kill for the ones we love” but when it came down to it would you really be willing to risk all you have for your family or loved ones? Would you sacrifice your life so that others could live theirs?

The Huffington Post has often been a part of my leisurely reads I come across with interesting and entertaining articles, but yesterday I found this article, which paired perfectly with what we had discussed in our previous class. The title “New California Law Gives Free IDs To Homeless People So They Can Access Housing, School” creates the idea that all California cities have begun giving IDs out at absolutely no cost. While this may be partly true, in another article I found from the San Diego Free Press regarding the same law, the writer points out that there are hidden fees within the documentation required to receive the IDs as well.

When further reading the Huffington Post article by editor, Eleanor Goldberg, she mentions the hardships of attempting to retrieve required identification necessary to attend school, join helpful programs and agencies, obtain financial assistance, and lastly, vote. Homeless people are not voiceless, and since Huffington Post is a popular source for my generation hopefully it will create more awareness. In fact, after reading this article, the next day, I found it floating around on Facebook. Homelessness is not something my generation often talks about, but needs to.

As discussed in class, we do not hear about the lower wage working class, or the homeless, because they do not vote. It is a voice that is not mentioned in the media, nor in political debates, in addition to a voice miscounted. I found a website that provides a manual of voting rights that was created during the project “You Don’t Need A Home to Vote” in 2012. It provides a clear list of each states ID and residency requirements. Although the state is moving towards the right direction, there are still underlying factors that prevent this population of people from voting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-id-homeless-people_us_55ae9054e4b07af29d568b34

California Offers Free ID to Homeless People

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/projects/vote/Manual_2012.pdf (Suggestion: Begin from page 44)

Who has hope? What is hope? These are some of the discussion questions we looked and evaluated over this week. Due to being raised in a wealthy family and having a very privileged life so far when I first think of hope I think of phrases such as, “I hope I get a 4.0 in this class.” Or “I hope I swim fast in the swim meet I have this weekend.” These are the hopes of a privileged twenty year old.

After this past week in class I think of hope on another level. Hope now means to have faith that there are positive things ahead and that life will turn around. Many of the stories from the website, invisiblepeople.tv.blog were of people that seemed to have hope. In many of the videos they ask the homeless person if they had three wishes what would they be. By them being able to answer this question it showed they had hope. If they would have come up blank when asked about wishes it would show they have given up all hope of a better future.

Hope has many different levels depending on whom you are talking to. To privileged people hope is not something with much meaning, while to less privileged people hope is one of the only things they do have. When you have nothing physically, mentally you can have hope that will help you get through each day because of the hope there will be a bigger and brighter tomorrow.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Oakland-Artist-Turns-Garbage-Into-Homes-For-The-Homeless-253620791.html

Let me know what you all think.

Sam

One of the biggest holdbacks in to improving poverty and helping out the homeless is the biggest institution of them all, government. They are the ones who run the show and allow what they want for the businesses and non-profits to do. I was talking with one of the case-managers at the internship that I volunteer at. I found out some interesting information about how the city can really limit the helping that these people and volunteers can do for the non-profits and shelters that help the homeless. The way I found this out was because I was curious why the church had the men’s shelter open for only 3/4ths of the year. I was told that is was because of the city. They only allowed for a permit for that length. They are in the process of fighting it to make it a full year, because it is stupid to kick the people in need out for a few months. The city is also doing sweeps right now and is pushing the homeless on the street out to another neighboring city. It would be a lot more beneficial to put the recourses towards the shelters that house them and not have them be on the street. The shelters are beneficial in the sense that they help the homeless try to find a better place to live, or try to give them the job skills that would allow them to get back up on their feet.

I was incredibly moved by Toni Flynn’s book, “Finding My Way: A Journey Along the Rim of the Catholic Worker Movement.” Near the end of the book, she describes a moment she had in which she had to question her morals because she chose not to act when she should have. The anecdote she shares is about what she witnessed while eating an ice cream cone outside of a restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier. As she was sitting there, a homeless man approached the restaurant and began looking in the rubbish bin for something to eat. Instead of trying to assist the hungry man, one of the bartenders approached the homeless man and cruelly screamed at him to get away. The man elucidated that he was hungry and continued to look through the trash. In response, the bartender slammed the lid of the can onto the other man’s fingers. Instead of speaking out against the bartender’s actions, Toni sat there silently, stunned.

After the incident, Toni was troubled by her inability to act in the face of such blatant inhumanity. She asked herself, “what dark side of myself did I encounter? Why, witnessing an injustice, did I not act in some way to prevent such a violent, degrading incident? How can I forgive myself for committing such a gross withholding of love?” (p.53).

This quote was particularly significant to me, because it is a moment that I’m sure all of us can relate to, where we saw something wrong and did nothing to stop it. This quote reminds me of how I felt the other day. Last weekend, I was headed into a restaurant with my friend to get some lunch when we were approached by a homeless man holding window washing tools. He asked if he could clean her car windows in exchange for a few dollars. She declined his offer. He then asked us if we had any food we were willing to spare. Both of us said we did not. Once inside of the restaurant, I was overwhelmed by guilt. How dare I be so selfish as to deny another human being something as easy to accommodate as a meal? Horrified with my moral character, I quickly asked the hostess if she could expedite a to-go order so that I could provide the man with dinner. She obliged and I jogged outside to find the man so that I could offer him some food.

As I walked up to him, I witnessed him ask two other people for some spare change. Both individuals brushed him off. I greeted the man and asked if he’d be interested in some Mexican food. He seemed shocked by my offer and it took him a moment before he accepted. The two of us talked as we walked back over to the restaurant. Once there, I retrieved his dinner and he gratefully took it. As he was departing, the two men that had denied helping him earlier walked back up to him and both of them handed him a $20 bill. It just goes to show that even the smallest of gestures such as buying a hungry man some dinner can inspire others to do the right thing. I know that if I had gone on to eat my dinner without helping this man, I would’ve felt like Toni and hated myself for my inability to extend compassion to someone who needs it.

For my teaching project, I invited members of my family as well as neighbors to my home in Riverside, California. There were drinks and snacks provided. I set up rows of chairs in the living room area. Here about 15 members of my family gathered to hear me speak at the front of the room. I focused on two topics from our class. The first was breaking stereotypes. I chose this topic because stereotypes are really detrimental to the homeless. If the blame can be placed on an individual’s bad life choices, then there is never a need to question the bigger picture. This is also important because if the audience failed to understand the other aspects of the teaching project and the bigger picture, maybe at the least, this talk about stereotypes would change how they interact with the homeless and panhandlers in their own lives. The second thing I wanted to focus on was the structural causes of homelessness. The shift the blame from the individual to the structural.

I opened up the talk by introducing them to the class and what we have covered over the semester. I passed around the syllabus and some of the books that we’ve read. To dive into the subject matter, I started out by showing the audience a few short videos from Invisible people.org. This is the website that we interacted with at the beginning of the class this semester. It showed people talking in their own words about life on the street and how they got where they are. I thought this would be a better way for the ‘breaking stereotypes’ as it is easier to make a human connection with this demographic if you are hearing their stories in their own voices. There was a small discussion afterwards about their reactions to the videos. The next phase of the talk was me presenting them various aspects of the structural issues. I printed out maps, charts and some statistics that went along with my talking points. Then there was a wrap up discussion at the end. During this time, I answered any final questions. I also asked each person to write down something new they learned, a question they still had, or any sort of reflection on the topics that had been covered.

Overall, I think the event went well. The audience was engaged in discussion and really contemplated the material. Members of the audience brought up their own personal ties to certain struggles as well as issues that I did not mention. Most of them understood the structural causes but at times revealed that their view of homeless individuals were still stereotypical.