Community Service Paper

Part I
For many people in nations all over our world, homelessness is an ever present or looming issue. According to an article titled "The Geography of Homelessness" published on the website of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, there were approximately 671,859 men, women and children living as homeless people in the United States in 2007. For my community service project and during my research I decided to put special emphasis on San Francisco and the Bay area since it is my home region, and also because it is the area that I know best in our country. Currently the Bay Area is home to many thousands of homeless men, women and children, with my home county of Contra Costa having the eleventh highest population of homeless people in the entire nation. Right now San Francisco is home to several thousand “hard core” homeless, men and women who live in between the streets and homeless shelters year round. The many tragic facets of their day to day lives are discussed in a series called "Shame of the City" by Kevin Fagan of the San Francisco Chronicle. After reading the five installments of this series and digesting the information in each one I feel that I have gained much more perspective on the issue of homelessness and that I have a better understanding of how people feel about living without the security of a residence. Below is a photograph of the Silver family, a couple and their two children, who live out of their van in San Francisco. This family is an anomaly in that they are an entire family unit living together on the street. When thinking of the homeless I, like many others, think of lone men and women panhandling. It had barely occurred to me that there are in fact entire families who wake up on the street, send their kids to school, and live their lives as a unit just like mine, except that they are permanently without a roof over their heads.

I know that the problem of homelessness is a vast one, and that it is very important for residents of the bay area as a community to ensure that we are making progress towards alleviating the dire situations that many of our fellow citizens have become entangled in.
Sadly, many people in the community have very negative attitudes towards homeless people, often considering them to be lazy or shiftless, and saying things like “If they would just get a job..” not realizing that it is not always that simple. Disparaging remarks like these are quite often unfair because many of the men and women who are living on the streets are in their predicament because of problems with drug abuse or mental instability, two conditions which are very difficult to overcome without help. Many residents of San Francisco have come to view the homeless more or less as a plight on their city instead of as the desperate human beings that they are, which is truly tragic because without some perseverance and passion to help, the situation will never change.

Part II
Unfortunately it has been particularly difficult for a solution to this issue to be formulated in our area. The bay area (one of the areas in our nation with the most severe problems relating to homelessness) has not been particularly effective at obtaining and utilizing federal aid for the homeless because the government is wary of awarding cities funds if they do not have a solid plan to address their issue of homelessness. According to the following graphic, featured in a blog by Richard Shabazz on The Examiner.com, California is inadequately prepared to cope with their problems with homelessness, our state is in fact in the bottom third for preparedness, although we have one of the most insurmountable epidemics of homelessness.

In the fifth installment of the "Shame of the City" series, the author discussed the stunning fact that the city of San Francisco has as many as 5,000 "hard core" homeless men and women, and a population of about 800,000 overall, while New York (a city with a population of 8 million!) has a hardcore homeless population of less than 2,000. This disparity in the ratio between homeless population and overall population is due almost entirely to the fact that New York has been much more adept at utilizing government funding to remedy their situation with homelessness. The national government obviously does not want people to live on the streets, however since Regan was president and many men and women who were residing in mental institutions were in essence “turned loose” onto the streets, the problem of homelessness has become exponentially more grave. The local government in the Bay Area really needs to develop and solidify a competent plan for combating homelessness and present it to the federal government so that our region can receive the much needed federal funds to begin solving the crisis of homelessness in our area.
For my community service project, I donated two consecutive Saturday mornings and afternoons of my time to work at one of the Habitat for Humanity build sites in the bay area. The build site that I worked at on those two days was located on Edes Avenue in East Oakland. I was wary of venturing into East Oakland at first, being a sheltered suburban girl I had only driven through East Oakland on the way to the airport, and have been warned to be cautious on BART if I am passing through that area. Thankfully however, my opinions have been changed and I have realized that areas like East Oakland need to be improved, and that volunteers should not be wary of going to help. The families who live in East Oakland, just like in any intimidating area, should not be neglected or punished simply because of where they were forced to settle.
The organization Habitat for Humanity has developed a construction site on a lot near the train tracks, and they are in the process of building a lovely community with several really pretty, eco-friendly houses at the Edes Avenue site, and families without homes will be able to move into them. One of the pre-requisites for moving into one of the homes is that the family must work a minimum of 500 hours at the build site, which is really cool because then the families get to meet and interact with the volunteers working to build their future dream homes. In my opinion this program is really amazing because it basically provides families in difficult situations with the opportunity to work hard and earn themselves a beautiful, secure, new home.
Part III
For the issue of homelessness to be improved upon many things need to be set in motion. This is not really an issue which can ever be permanently resolved, but the governments in any area with a homeless population need to begin to take action. Plans to improve life for people currently living on the streets must be set in motion and local, as well as federal, governments must take responsibility and become culpable for the well being of the many human lives being affected negatively by the issue of homelessness. Also, individual citizens need to realize that we are a community. People need to understand that if someone is sleeping on a street corner, in the pouring rain, with nothing but a threadbare sleeping bad for warmth, they need help, regardless of whether they are lazy or industrious, or if they should be considered crazy or sane, they are a human being is suffering, and it is our responsibility as fellow human beings to do everything in our power to provide that man or woman with a brighter future. The citizens of the world must be shaken up and forced to recognize that their fellow human beings are suffering and that collectively it is in our power to change things.
After my experience at Habitat for Humanity, and after seeing the multitude of volunteers who had come out to donate their Saturdays, I am hopeful. I firmly believe that if enough people in a community have the desire to dramatically alter the circumstances of their neighbors for the better they will be able to. In my cumulative 15 hours of service I was able to paint wood that would soon enough be turned into somebody's home, and I was able to work together with the future occupants to erect the walls of a home. I have never been a very technical person, but at the Habitat for Humanity build site I felt like I was really making a difference.

I will definitely be returning soon to put in a few shifts at the Edes Avenue build site or any other build sites in our area. I have participated in several community service organizations, and Habitat for Humanity was one of the first during which I actually felt like I was trusted to contribute something valuable. At many organizations it seems to be more about marketing, or about simply putting in ones hours to complete their "civic duty". At Habitat for Humanity however, I felt like everything was different. Habitat for Humanity effectively creates a community of people who have the common goal of providing every family with the home that they deserve. I am so very glad that I had the opportunity to participate with this organization and that I had both opportunities to put in some time and labor at the build site. Hopefully many other people will realize how valuable it is to participate in an organization like Habitat for Humanity, and they too will be able to experience how awesome it is to work with your hands and actually see what you have created at the end of the day, and to know that your hard work will make a difference.

Where Do People Volunteer?

According to this graph published in a study by the state of Maine on volunteerism among it's citizens. I consider this graph to be fairly representative of the majority of states. What I found to be interesting was that Civic community service and volunteering for social services were not the highest, I assumed that those areas of service would be fairly high in percentage.

March 27th

On March twenty seventh I worked my second Saturday at the Habitat for Humanity build site at Edes Avenue. My second Saturday I volunteered to join the paint crew, coincidentally with the same crew leader as the previous week. We ended up having to do a little more than just painting though! We spent the first three hours cleaning up trash and decrepit furniture that homeless people had amassed on the Habitat for Humanity staging lot. This was pretty gross, there were a lot of empty pill bottles and moldy couch cushions, and after three hours I was so glad to be done. We then had our lunch break and we got to talk to some of the other volunteers and to some of the home owners, and that was really fulfilling. After lunch we began painting the wall panels, big plywood sheets that were much, much heavier than they looked. After painting panels in the direct sun for four hours I was rocking a pretty rad sunburn, which still has my left shoulder reduced to a stinging mass of redness, and some good sized blisters from the plywood. I also was basically covered in "Sea Breeze Blue" paint, which although meant for the houses ended up in my hair and all over my clothes.
I had an amazing time at both of my shifts and I feel like I will definitely be returning to volunteer my time for some shifts this summer.

Saturday March 20th

Saturday March 20th was my first day volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. At this point I feel like I have researched a lot and learned quite a bit about homelessness in our region of the world. Now I feel that I am prepared to begin chronicling my experiences at the build site. The twentieth was a really gorgeous day, not to hot but definitely not at all cold. Compared to my work the following week, this day was pretty easy breezy and the only bad side effects was some neck pain from craning my head to get paint up all day. I spent most of the day up on the scaffolds painting under the eaves and erecting walls inside some of the houses. Some of the homeowners were there and it was a really cool experience to spend the morning working on their future homes, and then share Gatorade with them at the lunch break.

The Habitat for Humanity fact sheet page pretty much outlines the program and I found it to be an excellent source of information prior to beginning work

Aid To the Homeless in Contra Costa County

Several years ago I volunteered at my church tutoring homeless children and helping set out a lunch buffet. My church, Saint Perpetua's, participated in a rotation where homeless families would spend one week at a church and then move to a different church, where they were provided with food, shelter and services for their kids. Ever since then I have been curious about homeless shelters in Contra Costa County. I did some research and one organization that popped up was Contra Costa Interfaith Housing, this is a non profit organization dedicated to ending the struggles of homeless people in Contra Costa County. The program's main goal is to promote self sustainability and to break the cycle of homelessness. According to some statistics on the website Contra Costa County has the eleventh highest homeless population in our entire nation! That really shocked me.

Edes Avenue Habitat for Humanity Project

Below is a picture taken at 10800 Edes Avenue, the Habitat for Humanity home building site where I have been volunteering my time for my community service project. I went last saturday, March 20th and I will be going again this upcoming Saturday, March 27th. This was a really rewarding experience and I am excited to go back, at first I was apprehensive, especially because I manage to hammer my thumb even hanging up a poster, I more or less figured that I would be more a hinderance than a help. I really felt good though that evening when I got home and could shower off all the grime, especially since I had seen first hand the progress being made on some one's future dream home.

Shame of the City part 5

San Francisco needs to find a solution for the thousands of men and women who spend their times on the city's streets. Federal aid money is available but the city needs to have a solid, viable plan to cope with the issue before the government will give them money.
The fifth and final installment of the "Shame of the City" series discusses the lack of a plan in San Francisco. In recent years San Francisco passed the Care Not Cash bill, which offers the homeless services instead of welfare payments, which can arguably be used to purchase drugs or other harmful things. San Francisco needs to offer more shelter.
In New York there are less than two thousand homeless living on the streets, while San Francisco has almost 5,000 hardcore homeless. New York has 8 million inhabitants and San Francisco has 800,000, this discrepancy in homeless population with regards to total population is ridiculous. San Francisco has one of the worst problems in the entire country, and although California is well known for its altruistic citizens, and liberal "hippie" attitudes, the people in need of help are not being aided.

Shame of the City Part 4

San Francisco's homeless problem is vast, in part largely to the liberal atmosphere of the city and the temperate climate which makes the city quite tempting to homeless drifters. The fourth installment of the series I have been blogging about discusses the way that the city's aid programs and inhabitants quite frequently enable the homeless instead of doing them any real good. Homeless are issued tickets for "squatting" charging them fines that they can not pay, and they are often arrested for possession of drugs or paraphernalia, resulting in their being sent to a rehab center to be cleaned up. The rehab stays are not the problem, the fact that post-rehab the homeless are immeadiately bounced back onto the street is.
Also sympathetic passerby handing out money to the homeless often provide the men and women with means to purchase their daily supply of crack or heroin.
San Francisco needs to figure out a more viable plan for dealing with the problem of homelessness.

Shame of the City- Part 3

Upon seeing homeless men and women living on the streets, many inquire why they don't take themselves to a shelter. In the third installment of the "Shame of the City" series the homeless shelter at Fifth and Bryant is discussed. Many claim that they would rather sleep on the streets than in this "drug haven" while others definitely consider the shelter a more than viable option. This emergency shelter, Multi-Service Center South, or MSC as it is most commonly called is considered to be one of the toughest shelters in the city, where "anything not tied down is stolen". However for many it is considered to be the best option they've got.
When everyone enters the shelter they are handed a thin, gray wool blanket and instructed to pick a three inch thick mat on the floor. Many of the people inside bring in alcohol and drugs like crack. Pretty much as long as an individual is not obnoxious, they can get away with breaking any rule. The shelter is used as a night time haven for many, drug users and innocents, who are happy to have a roof over their heads and a plate of nutritious (albeit not tasty) cafeteria food to eat.
Everyone morning by 7am everyone is gone and the shelter is deserted until the following afternoon at 4:30 when everything began again. The shelter offers support groups and tuberculosis testing, because living in the congregational setting puts the men and women at high risk for the illness.
Although many insist that they are too terrified to spend a night in the violent drug den of a shelter, there are really relatively few disturbances and 75% of shelter guests are satisfied with their safety and treatment.

The Shame of the City, or the Victims of Society?-Part Two

When most people think of homelessness, they think of lonely individuals living on the street, however there are some families that live without homes or shelter. In part two of the "Shame of the City" series in the San Francisco Chronicle, homeless families are discussed.

The main focus of the article is the Silver family, who for the past four years have lived in their van. The family is on a list for housing, but they still have several years to wait until they are placed in a home. The Silver's are lucky because they are together, and their seven year old son and eight year old daughter are still able to go to school and do well despite their situation. The family earns money at Giants day games when the disabled father pan handles from his wheelchair, while the mother and children wait in the van several streets over. The father says that he is ashamed and does not want his children to see him asking for money.

It is rare to see full families living on the street because state authorities will take children away to be placed in foster care if they are considered to be living in a unhealthy environment, which the street most definitely is. The Silver family defy typical homeless stereotypes because the children both do very well in school, the family attends church every Sunday and neither parent is a substance abuser. For these reasons, the authorities have not attempted to remove the children from their parents. Unfortunately the family's homeless status has negative effects on the kids at school, although their teachers are supportive for the most part, other students frequently tease Ashley and Tommy.

Homelessness is devastating in all circumstances, but to see an entire family suffering this plight is truly heartbreaking. I'm glad to have the opportunity to help build homes for homeless families and dramatically alter their circumstances.

The Shame of the City, or the Victims of Society?-Part One

In December 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle published a series on homelessness called "The Shame of the City". In this series reporter Kevin Fagan dove into the city of San Francisco to figure out why there were so many homeless people living so miserably, and blatantly destitute in such a sophisticated and progressive city. Despite the cities efforts, and millions of dollars thrown at the problem, there are still 3,000-5,000 "hard core" homeless living in the city, this kind of homeless man or woman are the type most visible in the city, sleeping on the street and panhandling. They are unfortunately, also the most difficult people to help.
Part one of the series is called "The Island", this segment is about a 40 by 70 foot traffic island between 12th and Mission Street and South Van Nuys Avenue. The segment describes the everyday tragedies experienced by the collection of homeless people using the traffic island as a home base who spend their days pan handling and doing other things to get money. The article describes the death of the so-called leader of traffic Island, a man named Tommy. Like approximately 170 other homeless people a year Tommy lived and died on the streets, he contracted necrotizing fasciitis and soon thereafter died. Tommy was a heroin addict who taught the other residents of the Island how to pan handle most effectively and looked out for the others.
Tommy is just one example of the many people who have succumbed to homelessness, as are the others on the Island. Many are prostitutes, several are one legged, and almost all of them are drug users ( a majority use crack and/or heroin). These people are often ignored or even abused by the people who walk by them on the sidewalk, when they really just need counseling or healing. Those classified as "hard core" homeless don't want help though and that is the main problem. One of the men living on the Island was so against receiving any outside help that he krazy glued his skin when it split instead of going to a doctor.
On a good day the panhandlers can make about $40, which is almost always put towards a $10 crack rock or a $20 bag of heroin, and that is quite often the best that they strive for.
Homelessness is a terrible tragedy and as the story of the men and women who live on the Island shows, the homeless are individuals who want a better life, they are all somebodies son or daughter and they all were children who were full of potential at one point.

US Department of Housing and Urban Development

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development helps fund programs to aid the homeless, these programs are run by local organizations and provide homeless men and women with programs like counseling, meals, and job training options. The best ways to support these type of programs are to donate food, money or your time!

Not Enough Preparation for Homeless Kids

All across the nation states are under prepared to address the situation of childhood homelessness. A blog on the Examiner.com discusses the dire situation and presents facts on how critical the situation truly is. I was shocked to read facts like that 42% of homeless children are under 6, that one in seven homeless have severe medical issues, and that more than one million currently homeless children will not even have the opportunity to graduate high school.

Millions of children are living in poverty, and experiencing the tragic life of homelessness everyday, and most Americans are not even aware of the situation. Many homeless children will develop developmental or behavioral issues, and many will also be condemned to an entire life of homelessness. The overwhelming number of children who are not able to return to the same bedroom every night, and who are forced to combat the insecurity of never knowing if their current residence will be permanent is tragic, and I for one believe that it is imperative that we help these children.

Happy Ending for a Homeless Man

Daniel Harlan, one of the many homeless men and women residing in the Bay Area, was reunited with his companion of many years, a Himalayan cat named Samantha. Harlan's cat dissapeared from the homeless encampment where he was residing, and he was distraught to have lost his best friend of four years. Thanks to an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, the word got out about Harlan's situation and the cat was returned to him, and they enjoyed a tearful reunion.

This story demonstrates the everyday tragedies and insecurities of homeless life, Harlan never hurt anyone, and loves his cat to death, however he is unfortunate enough to be a homeless man in our current economy. Everyone in America deserves a safe, dry place to rest their head at night, and the sense of security that their possessions (and pets) will remain their own.

Humanity for Haiti

Habitat for Humanity has announced a future project to build homes in Haiti as soon as conditions allow. These homes will cost approximately $5,000 to build, and most of the work will be done replacing and repairing earthquake damaged structures.

Habitat for Humanity Success stories

Habitat for Humanity is an excellent organization with inspiring success stories. Thousands of families have been positively impacted by the powerful works accomplished by Habitat for Humanity, and I am excited to make a difference in someone's life.

My Community Service will be.. (drumroll please!)

I'll be doing my community service with habitat for humanity. This program helps families in need build homes. I believe that this program will be a really great way for me to accomplish my community service hours, because I think it will be really cool to meet the families who's houses I'll be building, and to work alongside them to achieve their goal.