Reading the book “Down and Out, On the Road” by Kenneth Kusmer has shown me how far back homelessness goes in America. This book covers the entire period from the colonial era to the late twentieth century. You learn through this book that homelessness has been present in America for over two hundred years! To begin with the fact that a lot of these homeless people are immigrants however, there is a lot of diversity and global immigration. All of these homeless people can include disabled, mentally ill, orphans, and even freed blacks. It is hard to think back to the day when just steamboats were being invented and there was still homelessness going on. Through Kusmer’s text, you get a better understanding of how people become homeless and how charities and public authorities deal with this problem of being homeless. You even learn about all the diverse ways that homeless people deal with in class, ethnic, and racial groups. It was interesting to learn during the Industrial Revolution it was a major turning point for everyone in human history. During this time, three main types of transportation were produced which indluded waterways with steamboats, roads, and railroads. However, they were more likely to travel on foot due to the lack of safety on trains, the cost of steamboats, and hostility. It is depressing to think that at such a big time when advancements in technology are first being made but so many people never had the opportunity to use these advancements in their everyday life due to their homelessness. This time was when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transport, and technology changed.

Although Christopher Jencks’ book, The Homeless, is twenty years old, his ideas still remain constant today. Jencks outlines factors such as personal susceptibility such as alcoholism, tragedy, disability, and mental illness. However, he focuses more on the structural conditions, which include; job market changes, housing loss, hospital closure, lowered social support, and drug epidemics. His main point is to explain how and to what degree have these structural conditions caused a rise in homelessness.

Job market changes are still linked to homelessness today. Minimum wages are low to the point where people cannot afford to live off them. We saw in our Data Exercise #1 that it is almost impossible to live off minimum wage, in conclusion people are becoming homeless. Housing loss also remains as a cause for homelessness. This was very apparent in between 2008 and 2009 when many houses went into foreclosure because people could not afford their houses with their minimum wage jobs and the rise of the housing market. Hospital closure is still apparent today and is linked to the cause of homelessness. Mentally ill people who are at hospitals are often put in a taxi and taken to skid row because there is no one who claims to be responsible for them. We saw evidence of this in a video shown in class of mentally ill hospital patients getting taken to skid row in Los Angeles. Lowered social support is also a consistent cause of homelessness. Public assistance such as health care and welfare is not always implemented with the poor and homeless in mind. When these support programs are lowered the people under the poverty line suffer. In addition, drugs have displayed contributions to homelessness. Especially in 1984 when the crack epidemic broke out, which is what Jencks discusses in his book as a major cause to homelessness. Today, we still see a link between drugs and homelessness.

While Jencks’ book discusses social structures as being the driving force of homelessness twenty years ago, we still see these as major causes today.

http://moodle.redlands.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=135210

http://nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/employment.html

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeGFIL4BD_M

For this weeks reading we read Reeve Vanneman’s online summary of Christopher Jencks’, The Homeless. Many aspects of the summary stuck out to me, specifically chapter 7 titled, Social Skills and Family Ties. It brought up the notion that those who live alone and have little to no ties to a family are at a higher risk of homelessness. This interested me because recently we have been talking about the hopelessness of homelessness. Regardless of the reasoning behind why one becomes homeless there is this crippling hopelessness attached to it that seems to span across each experience that we have read about. To me, this aspect of homelessness is the part that seems to be the most damaging. Wether it be through the stories of the homeless mothers, teens, addicts, etc., each person described this inevitable emotional aspect of homelessness. This emotional frame of the homeless experience is what essentially acted as the “human” and “relatable” aspect of homelessness for me. The idea of being hopeless when you have nothing really is what in my opinion, makes homeless seem so all encompassing. I do think that if you don’t have a family or someone to at the very least share that burden with, the hopelessness of homelessness can become never ending in a way that permits and perpetuates its existence in a persons life.  I was also interested in the notion posed in chapter ten that suggests that homeless shelters do not necessarily help issues of homelessness and could perhaps be sustaining it. I have never personally lived in a shelter and I know the risks and potential issues that can come with living in them solely through the perspectives and experiences that we have read about. Yet, I cannot really believe that providing a means of shelter for people could be damaging. I feel like to suggest that homeless shelters perpetuate homelessness is in a way implies that one believes that homelessness is not an issue of circumstance, but of choice. While the article also acknowledges the idea of intentional homelessness, I do not believe that the reasons behind choosing to leave a home or family necessarily means that those people were given a choice. I also would argue that homeless shelters are by no means, “nice”. The reality is, is that you still don’t have a space where you are entitled to your own time, privacy, expressions, etc. You are living in cramped conditions with people who you do not necessarily know, and are being forced to abide by rules that permit little to no spontaneity, fun, pleasure, etc. To suggest that homeless shelters are providing with people who chose to be homeless with a “nice” alternative form of living is in my opinion pretty ignorant.  I also simply cannot get behind this notion that Americans seem to be so obsessed with that is essentially “There is a person out in the world getting something for free that I am not getting for free and that is wrong”.

On a personal note, I had an experience this weekend that made me really think about what my life would have been like if I was homeless. I very recently burned my leg. It is a third degree burn that covers about a third of my calf.  I remember debating whether or not I wanted to go to urgent care. Just being able to have the option to go and wait in a room for an unspecified amount of time with people who were both seriously injured or sick, or to just wait until Monday morning when I could go see a doctor on my campus and be given the proper care and instruction that I needed to get better was a privilege that I would not have had if I were homeless. I was also work on campus and have a pleasant and understanding relationship with my bosses and was able to go directly to them and talk about what had happened and be comfortable and capable of missing work for a few days until I could get it checked out. I didn’t have to worry about how missing a couple days of work was going to effect the way I was able to eat or effect my quality of life. I was able to take the time to let my body recuperate and heal without the stress of strain of having to worry about all of the ways that it could affect my life. Overall I am hoping that perhaps in class we can talk about times in our lives where being homeless could have really effected our physical wellbeing. While I am aware of the many ways in which homeless does constantly affect a persons physical wellbeing, it was interesting to really be confronted with an issue that had I not been financially stable or had medical attention provided to me in the way that it was, my quality of life could have been drastically altered by something as simple as a burn.

I have heard the argument that homeless people are lazy, that they should just get a job and stop wasting their time and then begging for money. Clearly this is an irrational argument given the current rates of unemployment, the many types of people who are homeless and reasons why they are homeless. What many people are unaware of is that one of the types of homeless people are those with mental illnesses.  Jencks states in his book The Homeless “Clinicians who examine the homeless today usually conclude that about a third have ‘severe’ mental disorders. Since the homeless were often hospitalized in the 1950s…, well over a third of today’s homeless might have been locked up at that time. Recreating the mental-health system of the 1950s would therefore cut today’s homeless population dramatically.” Reviewer Reeve Vanneman asks readers where they stand on this issue.  After researching and hearing about Mental Health programs in the 1950s, I do not agree with the methods that were in place at the time. Many people were admitted into hospitals that did’nt need to be and were also given wrong diagnoses, and medications that increased their problems. I am a strong supporter of progressive interactive therapy programs for people who suffer from a variety of mental illnesses.   My father is a Psychiatric RN and works with homeless people that are admitted in the hospital all the time. He has told me that 70% of the homeless people in Marin County, CA have some form of mental illness. What I want to know is if homelessness causes mental illness or intensifies it.  Homeless people are under constant stress for survival, safety, access to food, bathrooms, and a place where they can sleep.   I believe that traumatic experiences such as fighting in war, poverty, gangs membership,  physical and sexual assault, drug and alcohol abuse,  which all cause post traumatic stress also increase mental illness. At my Dad’s hospital, on the crisis unit and both in and out patient, he  does therapeutic work  that is interactive, participatory and activity based. He integrates, meditation, yoga, movement, art and music therapy in group sessions.   The Odyssey Program for the Homeless and Mentally Ill, help them get housing,  first they find a  shelter then  help them move into low income housing apartments. They also help the clients get  to appointments, access to meals and groceries.   The Bucklew Nonprofit partners with Marin General Hospital as well. They guarantee to find them a job and provide training.  The Ritter House for the homeless has their own psychiatrist at the Ritter center and makes sure that their clients are getting there needs met.  Social Services are always the first to be cut from County, State and Federal funding.  All these programs need more funding for their services and to have more paid positions within the organization to provide services.