It was the day that I changed my views about the homeless people. It was the day of Project Homeless Connect. This day I completely changed my views toward the homeless people. I found myself in the same situation as a student in article, “Self-Consciousness and Social Position: On College Students Changing their Minds about the Homeless,” by James Ostrow. According to Ostrow’s founding from a student, “My attitude toward the homeless has made a total turn around. I had no intentions of doing anything else to help the homeless, just to do this for class and that would be the end of it. Now I want to help and will continue to work in a shelter” (Ostrow, 1995, p. 360). The things Ostrow had found from a student are exactly the same way I was thinking about the homeless. Before I started working with the homeless people and issues about the homelessness, I always think all the homeless people are poor, dressed poorly, lazy, drinkers, and drug users. During the Project Homeless Connect, I saw lot of different kind of homeless people and that changed my views about them forever. Some people were dressed professionally, some were dressed like everyone on the street that I saw every day, and some were just dressed in dirty shirt.
I also realized that not every homeless person were homeless from the beginning, it always like something bad happened to them while they were having wonderful life, like the client of Zhi’s. Like Zhi said, “He told me he was the hard-working type of person and he used to have his own business and be rather well off. Though he didn’t show any self-pity of his homelessness when he was talking about his house remodeling company and that he used to be a subcontractor for Safeway, he was really obsessed with the “old glorious days” and hoping to rise again” (“Field Notes from PHC”). I was surprised to know his client used to own a company of himself.
It started with I first opened my eyes in the morning of April 24, the day of Project Homeless Connect. When I woke up, I was getting worry about the event. I got worried because that I don’t know anything about what I suppose to do during the event and my client’s attitudes toward me. After I got ready for the event, I started driving to the school. When I was driving pass the Ritchie Center, I saw lots of volunteers were standing on the stair way outside of the Ritchie Center. That moment, I feel like there are thousands of butterflies inside of my stomach, because I was getting more nervous and worry.
When I got to the Richie Center, I signed in with one of the attendance volunteer and went to get the clip board. Then I got in the line. At that time, I looked at the time and it was around 7:50 am. I was kind of excited and nervous at the same time. Why I was excited was because I was thinking that I had started the event and there was no way to “chicken” out of it, so just do it.
As everybody and I were waiting in the line for the homeless people to coming, everyone, including me, was complaining about why it took so long for these homeless people to arrive. I saw some buses came and some homeless people came down from the buses. Meanwhile, I was relief because the line is finally moving. The interesting thing I saw while I was waiting in the line was that some of the homeless people were well dressed and they dress like regular people on the street. Just as I said earlier, it is the first moment that I changed my views about the homeless people. Also when I saw some elementary kids were offering some snacks to the homeless people, some people were greeting (like I always think of them), they would just accept as many free items as they could. Other people were just ignore these kids and not even thinking about getting free items, they just walked pass them and go straight to the Ritchie Center. That surprised me even more.
As the line got shorter and shorter, I saw to count the homeless people in the line, so I can see who will be the person that I will be guiding today. Finally, it is my turn. I saw three clients in front of me and I was hoping that my client will be a guy, because at that time, I thought if my client was a guy, we can get along better. But the sad part was that my client was a girl. The first impression I got when I saw she was overweight, young, and dressed like a normal school kid. At the same moment, I was thinking if she is homeless, then she is most likely a gangster, so she parents kicked her out. Or she has no parents, so she just playing with the whole event.
Finally, I can start the things, now. I called my client, M.M. When we got into the Ritchie Center, and first, I introduced myself to her and ask her what things she needs or wants to get done. She replied, “I want to get my ID, Birth certificate, food stamp, and social security card.” Then I ask again, “What else you want to get?” She replied, “Nothing that I can think of, now.” So I tell her, “Inside of the Richie Center, there are some medical check outs, haircuts, and massage if we had some time in the middle of the day, we can stop by and check these things out.” After I said that, she was interested in the haircut and the massage. I can tell that by her face when I tell her about the haircut and the massage, she was awakening all of sudden.
After we introduce each other, we walked further inside of the Ritchie Center. We found ourselves a table, and start to fill out the survey forms. From this point on, I can called M.M. and me, “WE,” because I think it is very good idea to make M.M. comfortable and relax. Then we went into the Gates Field House, where all the services that she needs are. When we first walk into Gates Field House, we saw lot of people were walking around the place and getting in lines for different services. First thing on our list was the food stamp. So we look around for the sign of food stamp. When we found it and sit in front of a worker for the department, that guy told us to go talk to the information desk and get an application. So we did what we are told to. We got like a 25 page-application to fill out. The thing I was glad about was that she doesn’t have much working, and expense experiences, so we can skip like 15 pages of the application. And the other good thing was that there was an experienced lady that helped her filled out the application. If wasn’t for that well experienced lady, we would spend at least an hour on the application and another half an hour in the line. So we finished the application in twenty minutes and turn in the application. Now, one of her goals is accomplished.
Next is the ID and Birth Certificate. When we were looking for the spot of the ID and Birth Certificate, we saw a long line of people waiting for their turn to get their ID. So we decided to go to the Social Security Service first. But on our way to the SS, we cut the lines to get vouchers for ID and Birth Certificate by accident. At that time, we don’t know what the line was for and we just walk straight to the worker and ask them what service is it. After we knew the place, we just sat down and started the process of getting a voucher. Getting a voucher doesn’t mean you are done with the process of getting an ID for most of the clients, but it is for my client. We found this out in the last minute of the day, which is the service the project had does not accept first timers.
We were so happy that we don’t need to be in the line of getting a voucher, so we kind of ran toward the line of Social Security Cards. When we got there, we waited in the line for like ten minutes. While in the line, I saw some other clients didn’t have their Social Security issues done, because they don’t have an ID or picture ID of any kind. My client was getting worry about whether or not if she could get the service by asking me. She got worried because all she had was an ID from her shelter. I told her just tried it out and ask the worker. When it was her turn, she asks the worker is she can have got a Social Security Card by just using the ID from the shelter. When the worker said yes and help her fill out the form, my client looked and smiled at me. I was relief when the worker said yes also.
It was around noon, and it was lunch time, so we went to get our lunch. Lunch was disappointing. All the hot food event offer for lunch was the spaghetti. During the lunch time, M.M. told me about their shelter’s policy to eat. The thing she told me was like the things I found in the qualitative research article about shelter foods, “Children expressed dissatisfaction with shelter mealtimes, as dinner was offered too early, leaving some hungry at bedtime, and the foods served often lacked variety or were of poor quality” (Richards & Smith, 2007, p. 1580) and “In our study, shelter rules further restricted the selection of foods and dictated household shopping behaviors, in that only ‘‘junk food’’ was allowed in their rooms. This overconsumption of junk food may be, in part, contributing to the high rates of overweight seen among these children” (Richards & Smith, 2007, p. 1580). She also told me that everyone in the shelter need to do chores everyday in order to eat. Even if they want to eat, they still need to do chores, because the policy stated everyone needs to do chores, if you stay on the shelter proper or eat food in the shelter. So on the day of Project Homeless Connect, she doesn’t need to do the chores in the morning, because she was not in the shelter. Still, she needs to do the chores before the dinner time, so she can eat the dinner on the day of PHC. And she complained about shelter offer dinner to early, which is around 6:30 pm. When I hear this, I thought 6:30 pm is not early. I think she said that is because they go to bed late every night. She also said that her friends often went out to get food at night. The things she was telling me was exactly the same from the article, this surprised me. When I was reading the articles for the qualitative paper, I thought the researchers were just over exaggerating the issue of shelter. From that point on, I realized how real the world is to these homeless people. The world (shelters) just treats these homeless people like “free workers.”
Back to the event, our next stop is the massage. When M.M. saw other people were getting the massage, she literally jumped into the line and waited in the line. As we waited in the line, we realized we had waited in the line for a half hour for her turn. And the massage took half an hour also. As I see the line for the ID was getting shorter, I decided to jump into the line. So, while M.M. was getting her massage done, I was in the line for the ID. This way we can get the things done quicker. As I was waiting in the line, I figure out the line is almost not moving at all. I wanted to get out of the line to do something else with her, but as more and more people are getting in the line and the line is getting longer and longer, so I decided to stay in the line.
While I was waiting in the line, I saw some interesting scenes in the place. Some volunteers were handing out women socks. The hair stylist came. Different kinds of homeless people, some were well-dressed, some were dirty looking, and some were family members or close friends. And the most interesting thing I saw was homeless people’ friendships among each other, like what Bandy said about her client, “My client was there with one of her friends, and they didn’t want to be separated, so the other volunteer and I decided to stick together with these two ladies” (“Field Notes from PHC”). And other is Zhi’ client’s situation, “He told me that he could easily get himself out of homelessness by moving in with his mother or a sibling or a relative as he got “518 relatives here in Colorado”. He used to support a family of 11 people and still run a good budget by stripping walls for Safeway” (“Field Notes from PHC”). His client had 518 relatives, thinking about it, it sound like over exaggerated, but still he believe he had lot of relatives.
As the day was going to be over, I was still in the line for the ID with M.M. The most memorable thing of the day happened. As we were waiting in the line to get the ID, a volunteer carrying a box of women’s socks was approaching and handing it out. M.M. refused to get any at first, same thing she did few times before with the other volunteers who were handing out the socks. At first the volunteer was acting very nice and keep asking M.M. to get some, because of the generous of the volunteer; M.M. accepted the offer. Then it happened. M.M didn’t know how many pairs she should took, but she had saw other people had took unlimited pairs of socks with the other volunteers, so M.M. decided to took three pairs. The moment comes, the volunteer’s face turned and almost exploded when she saw my client took three pairs, the volunteer nearly yelled “put those down!” But the volunteer hold the voice and just said, “Please limited it to two, PLEASE.” So my client put down the socks and didn’t take any. I feel like I knew how she was feeling and feel sorry for my client. There is heartbreaking moment also. As we were the next person to be in the line to get the ID, my client’s bus to go back to her place was long gone, because by then it was 1:45 pm and she still wanted to be in the line to get the ID and use the ID to find jobs. When finally was her turn, she walked into the booth happily. After twenty seconds or so, she came out with a sad face on, because the service for the ID they offer in the Project Homeless Connect was only to these people who had had ID before and they don’t accept first timers. At the time, it was so upsetting, because we had waited in the line for nearly two hours and all she got was “Sorry” from the service provider.
Good thing my client was an easy-going person, she just laugh it out after a while. After I saw my client laugh, I feel even more sorry for her, for not able to help her getting an ID and waited in the line for two hours for nothing. I would blame the organizer ID service for part of this, because they didn’t provide any information about the ID service. And blame myself for not knowing anything with each service that had provided by the Project Homeless Connect. If I could learn more information about each service that the Project Homeless Connect provided, I think I could help my client better and faster and we don’t need to stay in the line for two hours for nothing.
In conclusion, I learned a great deal from M.M. and I changed my views toward M.M. I changed my negative feelings toward the homeless people to positive feelings. I had been very biased toward homeless people, after the event I knew that these homeless people are hard workers too, I can tell by the motives of them coming to the Project Homeless Connect so early in the morning and how eager they want to find a job. Overall, I think the PHC is a nice experience to have and for me to learn more about the homeless people
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