Trying to understand homelessness…

Can anybody tell me what it takes to understand homelessness?  People that I asked seems to have a grave misunderstanding homelessness.  Besides the obvious answers I hear, “a person without a place to call home night after night”, I also hear “how it’s the person’s decision making process that lands them homeless”.  So, I ask “is it the person’s fault that they are homeless”?  So, is it?  In some cases it might be but very rarely it isn’t.  Becoming homeless is really out of a person’s control.  But don’t get me wrong though.  I also believe that it takes two people to cause a problem and it takes two people to fix a problem.  For example, let’s take me. On April 17, 2008, I was admitted into the hospital with cellulites infection.  I was in the hospital for a week.  It was this event that let me down the path of homelessness.  But I can’t totally blame it on this event.  As I write this blog, what’s in white is my thoughts on my homelessness, and what you see in black, bold, and italicize is what I think it takes to understand homelessness.

For the previous year, I was working at a job as the interim manager where I was averaging 90 hours a week.  Yes, you read that right.  I made $32,000 for that year.  What did I have to show for it?  Just a bunch of possessions.  I didn’t save any money when I had very little bills.  All I did was spent money on stuff no matter what it was.  But it caught up with me.  Once I was put in the hospital, I lost my job, and didn’t have my own place anymore.  I stayed with my mom after I got out of the hospital for two months for my recovery.  Then went on to stay with a friend for three months, in my car for six months, in a semi truck for two and half months, with a friend for one and half months, and then lastly with another great set of friends for four months before I found a job and a place to live shortly follows.  So, yes, my decisions did cause me to become homeless but would it have if it wasn’t for me getting sick?  I’m sure I didn’t make the decision to get cellulites infection?  So, it took two events to put me in an awkward position that I never been in before.  Homeless!

As every other battle I have had previously, I knew I was in a fight with an opponent I never met before.  To understand what I was in, I had to do some research to get my mind wrapped around the situation that I was in.  After understand what I needed to know, I made a plan to not only beat being homeless but get my life back on track and make sure I stay on track.  The first thing I did was took a life inventory.  Life inventory is taking inventory about yourself.  I knew I had to be brutal honest with myself.  I was breaking myself down and building myself back up so I needed to understand myself.  I needed to be as brutal as possible but I also knew I had a chance to give myself a complete makeover if I was able to be the victor.  I wrote all my faults, strengths, weaknesses, problems, friends I could trust, and everything else that I thought was very important.  Like newly diagnosed being a diabetic and had depression since I was 16.  I wrote down everything I had in my arsenal to fight this opponent called homelessness.  One thing I wrote down for myself, is a reminder that this isn’t my first battle with a problem like this.  All my life I had to battle things to get where I was.  This battle just raised the bar higher.  If I could defeat the previous battles, I knew I could defeat this battle.  As a homeless service provider, I think it’s important to understand what the homeless individual or family you are dealing with has available.  It’s all by connecting with them and listening.  Don’t just tell them to get to the point on why they are there.  We already know why they are there.  They need help.  You can learn a lot about them by just listening to what they have to say or explain what is happening. 

Then I made a plan and set goals based on this life inventory.  I knew it was important to stay on top of this.  If I didn’t, then I knew I would lose this battle.  So, at any sign of my moral going down, I knew what I needed to do to give my moral a boost.  I treated me being homeless as a normal part of my life.  Another words, before I was homeless I had depression and other underline problems to deal with.  So, when depression came about I knew there were certain things that would help me get out of my depression phase or when my moral needed a boost, I knew what I needed to do. I ended up going out having fun and let myself stop thinking about that problem or life for a day or so.  When this started to happened to me when I was being homeless, I did what I could do to make myself happy and forget about being homeless and totally change what I was doing to totally something else that would make me happy or give me that boost of moral that I needed.  As a homeless service provider, you are there to help this person understand what they are doing and how you can help them.  Sit down and make a plan and set goals with them.  Then you can hold them to that plan and goals.  Give them that accountability that they need.  Make them feel like they are still part of society.  The longer they are homeless, the more moral they start losing.  So, it’s important that as a provider that you are there to connect them to the right resource.

When I was homeless, the most annoying thing for me was somebody telling me that I had to go here, then I go there, and those people tell me I had to go here, and I go to those people tell me I had to go back to the same place I started this jumping through the hoops begin with.  Nothing frustrated me more.  But I knew I couldn’t get mad or frustrated because that just made the situation worse.  Instead, I killed them with kindness.  That’s what I did.  It threw them for a loop and allowed me to control more of the situation and get down to the bottom of what I needed or was there to get assistance for.  At the end of the day, I knew what my next plan or goal was needed.  As a homeless service provider, you will need to remember one thing when dealing with homeless individuals and/or families and that is “your worse day, is their best day”.  So, you think your having a bad day and yet you have to see homeless people, don’t take your frustrations out on them.  They are there to get help not be belittled.  Then try like heck to give them the best resource based on their situation.  Let them know what they should bring with them when they go there and what the requirements are.  Be thorough.  The person who said “knowledge is power” is so correct.

In conclusion, as a homeless service provider, it’s important to understand the situation that a homeless individual and/or families are in that you are trying to help.  Try connecting with them on their level.  When I provided help to the homeless individuals and/or families, I waited until they told me that I didn’t understand what they are going through.  I knew once I heard that, I was in because then I could share my story with them.  By the time I’m done, I have connected with them.  Then I started working on providing the the best resource I could that tailored to their needs.  Giving them numbers, names of people, what they needed to bring with them, what the requirements are, and etc.  At the end of our meeting I make sure they have the most important resource - MY BUSINESS CARD!

This is just the start of understanding homelessness.  One thing I do hate though is how these agencies care more about quantity than quality.  If they start treating the problem one person at a time, we would be getting somewhere.  When you have to see a certain amount of people in a day, than you lose sight of what’s important – CARING!

TL