Last week, I had the opportunity to meet one of the residents at my local shelter who became homeless this year. I was informed by staff members that he was struggling to find employment, due to his criminal record.  I wanted to discover the causes of the circumstances he lives and how he maintains to survive without receiving federal assistance.  His conversation relates to this week’s reading from chapter 6 “Helping Homeless Youth” in Inequality, Poverty, and Neoliberal Governance by Vincent Lyon-Callo.  I saw he was overwhelmed by his expression towards the case management working on his case, the frustration in seeking employment, and his upcoming residential contract termination.  He kindly shares his experiences regarding the career and education services provide as a requirement for self-suffiency.  He stated, “  “I am still stuck in that wall, what happens if I push it through it….am I supposed to keep going..keep walking..stop there..you know”.

Most of the homeless people lack education and support system from the staff that discourage them from seeking help in order to develop a plan to achieve their goals in obtaining a stable life.  This man like everyone else feels pressure to have a job without having the proper education to succeed.  How can staff normalize these individuals, when staff are not patient and willingly to understand profoundly the homelessness realities and people’s conditions.   “Instead of starting from 100 to 1…people are not educated and staff do not understand how frustrated they feel. How can I do it when I don’t understand it…? I am not producing I still need to learn how to use it” says the respondent.  In chapter 6 explains that homeless people want to be themselves not be “fixed” because it seems like a way that people are labeling them distinctive as the rest of society.  Homeless people may object to follow regulations and unwillingly to cooperate with staff.  Staff usually give up easily with the homeless people without understanding the major point’s homeless people want to develop to lead them on their path to attainment.  In my opinion I do believe is true, how can we force people to become educated, when we are not educated ourselves.  We need to place an example in order to teach other the leadership skills that they were taught to help others in need.

For our book presentation, my group read “At Home on the Street: People, Poverty, and a Hidden Culture of Homelessness” by Wasserman and Clair. This book is the result of four years of ethnographic research about homelessness in Alabama. The purpose of their studies was to understand what life is like for homeless individuals and why it is that they choose to not live in shelters. By doing so, they endeavored to determine whether or not policies and programs targeted towards this issue are effective or not. In order to gather this information, the two men stayed in shelters, slept on the street, and did all that they could to get to know the homeless communities in Birmingham on a personal level. That is because Clair and Wasserman wanted to collect data in a way that avoided the typical “insufficient and elitist” approach that most researchers have. They believe that power does not belong solely to the person conducting the research. That is why they decided to live amongst their subjects instead of just interviewing them.

Near the end of the book the two are describing what they believe are solutions for the issue of homelessness. They elucidate that “we cannot ‘fix’ homelessness if we do not know those who are homelessness.” (p.217). This was one of the wisest suggestions for rectifying homelessness that I have heard thus far. I agree with Wasserman and Clair in that homelessness in not a “what” issue, it is a “who” issue. It is impossible to determine what is best for someone if you do not know that person. Homelessness is not a generalized or linear subject. It is one that is conditional and impacts each individual very differently. Therefore, there is no simple answer for how to fix this problem. I definitely think that their research was a step in the right direction for determining more effective strategies for aiding those who are homeless in America.

In an article written for NBC New York, there has been a rise in homeless in the local youth population. Not only has the economic recession contributed to this, but the aftermath of Sandy has put a damper on many people’s living situation. One of the school districts on Suffolk County, William Floyd, has approximately 500 homeless students. The community understands and sees the struggles these kids encounter everyday. As such, even though some are able to get temporary housing, it is usually inconveniently far from the school district itself. With the rise in technology usage, most of these 500 students do not have the means to keep up their studies like other students. Additionally, some of these students go with out food. The schools in this area used to have a “homeless liason” or extra funding to aid these students. Yet, with all things, the recession took a chunk of that out of the schools budgets for these students. The fact that the majority of people who are homeless fall into the category of young students is disgusting. We show so much concern for those who are elderly in rough situations. As we discussed in class, there are so many social welfare programs that benefit the elderly. Yet, the youth are our future and they deserve to be cared for when no one else can care for them. As cold as it is, the elderly had many more opportunities, and have received aid in numerous ways. The younger people are the ones who have faced the budget cuts and dealt with all the economic repercussions. How can we expect there to be a brighter future if do not provide the means for those students to overcome obstacles society has placed upon them?

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Homeless-Students-Long-Island-Schools-Increase-250710011.html

Somehow when I read the piece entitled, “Public Radio and the Poor,” the phrase “money talks” immediately came to mind.  How true it is, really.  This article talks about Chicago Public Radio Station WBEZ posting four of its stations in  south side neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods whose stories typically would not be covered unless real-time human beings were physically present in those areas living and breathing their real-time stories.  Stories of the hood involved the high drop out rate at the high schools, teen pregnancy and parenthood, and the ineffective efforts to address these issues, etc.  The keynote example, however, highlighted the fact that the real mouthpiece for highlighting problems in the hood still emanates from those of financial stature.  A congressman’s son was shot across the street from a  south side hospital, but this hospital – as is true for all south side hospitals – did not have a trauma center.  The boy died, and his congressman father felt that he might have lived had the hospital been equipped to deal with his injuries.  His, the congressman’s, voice is the voice that is heard by people who hold the purse strings that could make a difference.

Perhaps it important that the masses hear the stories of the people struggling in the underbellies of our cities.  Many surely care.  Most feel helpless – myself often among that group.  But perhaps we are all waiting to be delivered from evil/unrighteousness by those with means who are somehow affected by the plight of those without.  It is only when the structural inequality affects those who typically are privileged that the issues come to the attention of those with the power to make a difference.

Most of my research for this week was focused on my second book report and the internship progress reports that were done last Thursday. While doing work for both of these projects I noticed that the most important thing people can do for homeless people is to give them a hand up, not just a hand out (which is actually one of the motto’s of my internship organization). I focused a lot on this during the last week but now that those are mostly finished I have looked deeper into one of the topics that interested me about a month ago.

One thing that I found to be really interesting from a couple class sessions ago was the video we watched about homeless “villages” where people either live in tents or have erected low-cost structures for a large number of people to live in as a type of community. I was doing more research into this when I came across an article published by the New York Times called “Small World, Big Idea”. It was published very recently, about a month ago, and focused on a place called “Quixote Village” in Olympia, Washington. The idea behind Quixote Village is that small one bedroom, one bath “cottages” were erected as a community for homeless and unemployed residents of Washington State would have a place to live. The structures are modestly built, but have provided shelter and living space for these people for months now.

Quixote Village is an anomaly. There are almost no other villages like this one, espeically in Western Washington. Many of the homeless camps in that area are tent villages erected in the woods or on the sides of train tracks. Michael Tortorello, the author of the article says, “Beyond its recent good fortune, the settlement was — and is — exceptional.Quixote Village, as it is now called, practices self-governance, with elected leadership and membership rules. While a nonprofit board called Panza funds and guides the project, needing help is not the same thing as being helpless. As Mr. Johnson likes to say, ‘I’m homeless, not stupid.'” This statement definitely makes one think about the fact that there are no other places like this for people who just need a way to get back on their feet.

A quote from the article gives a good snap shot of the community that makes up Quixote Village. The writer describes the community, saying, “Most of that demographic, an estimated 450 souls, is unemployed. While the residents of Quixote Village are expected to pay 30 percent of their income toward rent, 15 of the 29 individuals reported a sum of zero. Ms. Segel added that the average annual income for the rest of the residents — including wages, pensions and Social Security payments — is about $3,100 each.” (Tortorello, 2014)

Overall, I am very intrigued by the ideas behind places like Quixote Village and want to know if anyone else thinks that this is a viable option for changing the way homeless people are living.