Long story short I found out through the grapevine that in a class on race that a friend of mine took they dissected a Yelp review of a Latin American restaurant... the random wacky part was that it was a review that I wrote. The class concluded that I was pretty darn racist. Now, I know I'm not perfect but I'm certainly not racist. I find myself having prejudiced thoughts every so often just like everyone else, we can't turn off what we've been socialized our whole lives to think overnight.

I re-read the review and could see where they might have drawn the conclusions from but if a review of a French hole-in-the-wall said the same things (that the service was expectedly slow and that I wasn't sure what meats/fish was in one of the dishes) nobody would have batted an eye. But what still has me fuming isn't the fact that some things I wrote were twisted around, it's the fact that in colleges across the country there are people sitting in classrooms doing exercises like that every day but the lesson on one subpopulation doesn't necessarily transfer to another one. Plenty of people who are aware aware of prejudice towards Black or Asian people still run around calling people who are homeless derogatory names without a second thought.

How do we get that lesson to naturally transfer so we can teach it once, instead of a lesson on Black people, disabled people, homeless people, gay people, non-english speaking people, old people, Asian people, transgender people, poor people...? The root of the message is the same: everyone is valuable and everyone's experience is just as valid as yours and mine. Why is it so much harder to understand that when the thing that makes someone different is the fact that they don't have a place to call home?

Faces and Voices

While the "face" of homelessness is often a stinky, middle-aged-but-looks-older-than-his-years male with a bottle hidden under his coat and torn dirty clothes a few sizes too the reality is that there are many different faces of homelessness. Every face has a voice and some of these voices can be found in your own living room.

Invisible People is a website that interviews a variety of individuals who are living on the streets. One of the people that they interviewed, Briana, has a blog of her own called Girls Guide to Homelessness. And she isn't the only blogger out there who is currently homeless, there are many, even a website solely dedicated to bloggers who are homeless and a community that is working to compile a list of all blogs that address homelessness. The voices of people who do not fit the stereotype are ringing out loud and clear, we just need to stop and listen.

"Mankind is No Island"

Fantastic YouTube video shot completely by cell phone:

More NIMBY?

Looks like Lancaster CA is also on board with the one way tickets out, so much so that the Mayor is donating $10,000 of his own money to the cause:

Homeless in Lancaster Get Free Tickets to Go Away
LA Times, March 30, 2009

Jonathan Powell, a spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, disputed allegations that the city was encouraging its homeless to relocate to the Antelope Valley or anywhere else.

"We're doing everything possible to get our homeless families the services and shelter they need to get back on their feet," he said.

Powell said Los Angeles' social service agencies view accusations of homeless dumping by other municipalities as "urban legend, to deflect from their lack of achievement on this issue...

So far, most beneficiaries of the free bus program in Lancaster have been local residents who chose to go elsewhere, according to the Grace Resource Center.

Several homeless people who learned about Parris' views when he visited the center in January said they were offended.

"The way the mayor put it, 'homeless go home,' I didn't like that. That was kind of cold," said Grace Guijarro, 57, of California City, who lives at the Lancaster Community Shelter. "Not all homeless are . . . robbers and killers.""

When your gender is "other"

Homelessness among transgendered individuals is common. The most recent research (not so recent anymore) revealed that one in five transgendered individuals experienced homelessness and one in four transgendered individuals were not happy with their current housing status.

Shelters Slowly Adapt to Help Transgendered Homeless
The Associated Press

Twelve years heading the Salvation Army's downtown homeless shelter had done little to prepare Janeane Schmidt for the recent night when a soft-spoken biological male transitioning into a female walked in.

Schmidt didn't want to refuse someone in need. Having seen few such cases, however, and with limited space that winter night, she wasn't sure where to place the transgender woman. The shelter has space for homeless men and women but not anyone in between.

"Rather than turn them away, we give them a cot," said Schmidt, whose staff allowed the woman to stay a week in the shelter's lounge — the only space they could find.

This solution isn't ideal but for many shelters it is revolutionary. As recently as 2003 it was reported that some shelters in Atlanta actually posted signs that said "No Transvestites." I used to volunteer at a shelter where I co-ran a book group. After one of the sessions one of the staff pulled the other volunteer and I aside to let us know that one of the individuals who attended the group was transgendered. We didn't need to know that, we were just spending time with these people and weren't involved clinically. But he thought it was appropriate to "out" the individual, probably because he was uncomfortable and didn't understand. This is where the importance of sensitivity training (as horrible and cliche as it sounds) and reminding staff of confidentiality. He wouldn't run around telling the volunteers that someone was HIV positive (I hope) and it wasn't appropriate for him to reveal this information either.

If accepting people into programs and offering a cot in the day room is the best we can do right now so be it, it's safer than the streets and it's within the view of staff so in some situations it may be safter than the sleeping quarters. But a cot in the dayroom is still segregation and we need to strive for better.

For more information about making shelters trans-friendly check out Transitioning Out Shelters: A Guide for Making Homeless Shelters Safe for Transgender People

YouTube Documentary

Great YouTube documentary on youth homelessness.

Sometimes Life Just Sits Up and Bites You

When I first started volunteering a year and a half ago "Bob" was a regular at the shelter. An attractive guy who reminded me of someone I used to work with, he had it together, always with a smile and a helping hand. Soon after I started he disappeared.

In January he was back. He didn't really remember me and he was more reserved than before but he opened up as we worked together in the kitchen.

Last night he was there again but this time "together" would be one of the last words I would use to describe him. He was plastered. I'm used to seeing drunk people at the shelter, it's a wet shelter so pretty much everyone there is high on some sort of substance. But seeing Bob that way broke my heart. Substance use is no joke, it's a lifelong struggle.

From Paperback to Film

Two novels on homelessness are currently being adapted to film:
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City novel-film
The Soloist novel-film

I haven't read The Soloist but I have read Another Bullshit Night. It wasn't an easy book to get through but it's worth a look. Very unique writing style, and google is hosting it for free so why not check it out?

Because Social Workers are in it for the Money

Ending Homelessness, A Tough but Well Paying Job
New Times, 2/18/2009

Ending homelessness in SLO County will be neither easy nor cheap. In fact, it will cost $100,000 just to hire someone whose job will entail finding funding.

It’s part of the county’s so-called 10-year plan to end homelessness, although those writing the plan pitch it as more a step in the right direction than a decade-long cure-all to homelessness. Federal requirements actually mandate the plan title to include reference to ending homelessness in 10 years. It may not end homelessness, but having the plan helps qualify local homeless-services providers for more federal funding.

I don't know a single person in "this field" who is in it for the money. But that doesn't mean that I think that it's unreasonable to spend $100,000 on salary AND overhead (as the article later specifies) for someone with extensive fundraising skills. You need to spend money to make money and securing the right staff person for this job can maker or break an organization.

Didn't we just hear about the $1,000,000 bonuses that AIG staffers got? That's three more zeros, for just the bonus. It's really upsetting that the only reasons larger salaries are sometimes offered in the human services world is to "lure" people from the for profit sector. What makes them worth so much more?

Genius or NIMBY?

Hawaii has unorthodox plans to help control homelessness in the 50th state:

Plan would buy airfare to send Hawaii homeless to mainland
Honolulu Advertiser, January 25, 2009

Homeless service providers are supporting a proposed state-funded program that would provide airplane tickets for people who have come to Hawai'i from the Mainland and then find themselves homeless — and stuck.

State Rep. Rida Cabanilla, chairwoman of the Housing Committee, said she plans to ask for $100,000 this legislative session for a pilot program that would fly people who have recently arrived from the Mainland and are now homeless back to where they came from.

Relocating to Hawaii seems like an exotic idea. Who wouldn't want to live somewhere that feels like a permanent vacation? But because the cost of living is expensive and jobs are scarce which can result in homelessness. As much as 19% of the shelter population in Hawaii were in the state for a year or less before finding themselves homeless. As a result, Hawaii is funding programs that provide individuals who find themselves homeless soon after their arrival with a plane ticket home.

Other states employ similar techniques but it seems more extreme in Hawaii because the state is so isolated. When I first read this article I thought that it sounded like an obvious case of Not In My BackYard Syndrome (NIMBY) but now I'm not so sure. They only offer the tickets to people who want them and they make sure that services are in place wherever home is before sending someone away. For those who will return to family and friends, or service providers, who know them and care about them this ticket could be the ticket out of homelessness.