The Value of Homeless Outreach
Dear Readers,
We confront an issue that is universal among homeless individuals in our communities and this struggle is the struggle of homeless individuals attempting to get into the social service system. The causes of homelessness among individuals cross the gamut of causes. The most prevalent reason for homelessness in the United States is that the costs of living in the Unites States have outstripped the current earning wage of the minimum wage worker in the United States. The other reasons for homelessness in the United States involve physical disabilities that arise for American's that choose to fight in armed conflicts through out the world. These veterans suffer morbidity from physical disability that arises from being involved in conflict. The disabilities are being experienced by veterans from the Iraq conflict. There are a mass of veterans that are aging and suffer from morbidity. National resources that are earmarked to accommodate the needs of our American veterans are not enough. Physical and mental disabilities that individuals are born often prevent individuals from working and hence individuals must depend on a benefit check from Social Security. Such a benefit check will only cover the costs of housing for a homeless individual and will barely meet the costs of food for a disabled individual. The need for an individual to survive will often motivate an individual to forsake shelter in order to meet the other costs associated with living. I do not need to address the quality of living for an individual living in poverty or a homeless individual who is homeless. We have to understand that individuals living in poverty and those who are homeless will experience massive morbidities as a result of the lack of access to health care and proper nutrition. These individuals are often trapped because they can not achieve social mobility. The answer to social mobility in the United States is education. We can all agree on this principle. However how can we expect a homeless individual to achieve social mobility if there is a shortage of bus passes from social service providers? Furthermore, if we add on the lack of proper nutrition that our poor and homeless experience, how are they supposed to achieve social mobility? Who is going to encourage them to be successful when the going gets tough? The financial aid the federal government provides the poor is good enough to get a very motivated student through higher education. Agreed well, but what about your average to sub motivated student? How will they get through higher education if they do not having someone pushing them? The poor often do not have role models and they are often alienated because of other individuals who are pushing very hard and often have better resources than do the poor. Well, I guess I am ranting about an inequality that has existed with us for almost a half century, if not more. The reality is that poor and homeless individuals have it harder than do people coming from the middle class. It has been established in the literature that individuals coming from the poor classes have lower attendance in institutions of higher education. We wonder why, with all the struggles that poor people face. Moving on, I would like to establish that there is a solution to combating poverty in our community and to encouraging homeless individuals who become self sufficient. This involves first changing the attitude prevalent in our communities that our homeless are homeless because of held stereotypes that homeless individuals are homeless because they choose to be homeless. If you read the top of my article, you will see that homelessness is very broadly caused. Excellent now let's discuss the solution. The next step in combating homelessness involves mobilizing the community around methods that will improve the quality of life for our homeless and the ones who are experiencing poverty. This involves actually outreaching to the homeless and poor of our community. We hear about the very high rates of morbidity that the poor of our country go through. We all agreed that the poor of our nation lack access to health care at the rate comparable to the middle class and the rich. As a result the poor often present to emergency rooms with health disorders that could have been preventable. Mental illness among our high is very high. It is reasonable, I mean consider that the poor have to struggle to meet day to day challenges of survival like ensuring housing and food for themselves and any children if they have any. Hence, Depression runs rampant. Therefore, what must we do to reduce the onset of mental illness, health morbidities and to ensure social morbidity for the poor of our community? We must do something I call outreach. Social service providers as well as government officials stress the notion that if we advertise a program in venues where our target populations congregate, the target population will adopt the message that social service providers are trying to communicate. This method of providing messages that will benefit our populations is effective for the most part. What I encounter among the homeless population however is different pockets of homeless individuals who will respond to the beneficial messages in different ways. There will be the homeless individuals who if motivated will access a program that will greatly assist the social mobility and well being of a poor individual in some way. Then there are those homeless individuals who are not sure where to go with their lives because of struggles that they are dealing with. These individuals will often shun such messages because they distrust the established social system. These individuals will congregate with peers that have been through similar circumstances because these individuals will find some security from the un-predictability of homelessness. Hence, another challenge of outreach of outreach is in reaching this pocket of homeless individuals. The next pocket is the group of homeless individuals who just reject the message that social service providers give try to convey to the homeless population. These homeless individuals have become disenfranchised. They have lost hope. We must outreach to the homeless in all of these pockets but the challenge is how? Well, first we must as a community understands that being homeless is about adapting to circumstances that are often out of control of individuals who are homeless. For those homeless who want to gain shelter, we must as a community work together in fund-raising funds that will provide immediate shelter for our homeless. There is something called a Housing First model where what is stressed is housing our homeless who may be addicted to a illicit substance or alcohol before we work with a homeless person who is struggling with a particular issue. Let me tell you, the evidence suggests that it is better to assist our homeless who have shelter with their life challenges. Then, what translates from this stage is the value of outreach. We must take a survey about what is plaguing our homeless population. Then we must go further and develop a one on one relationship with our homeless to the point that we develop a strong friendship with the homeless person we are trying to advocate for. Then will we understand the true realities of homelessness. Sure, I can write down why some homeless individuals go in and out of detox programs and drug rehabilitation but what is important is what homeless advocates discover from personalized friendships they have with the homeless individuals that they may serve. When I say friendship I mean to create an analogy between the relationship that a physician has with a patient and the relationship that a social service provider has with client. Like medicine which is best practiced via a holistic understanding of your patient, the social service provider must have a holistic understanding of the life challenges of a client. First off, for our disabled we must improve the quality of life of the individual by raising the level of benefits that they receive. Then we must expand health benefits that they have access to. After we hop over this hurdle, we can provide job opportunities for the homeless individual who needs assistance with getting income (we should provide shelter first and put the individual immediately to work). Then the individual may began working and being sheltered. The renewed sense of doing something productive (working and earning a wage) may encourage a homeless individual to kick an illicit substance. Remember that a good chunk of our homeless use substances because there is a high prevalence of mental illness in the homeless community (they self medicate themselves to do deal with mental illness). Being housed for a homeless individual will create some benefit for the chronic medical illness that a homeless individual must deal with. This has been established through a PBS special I invite you to visit. What do we do for the homeless person who is sort of wary about accessing social services? We must as providers take a survey and figure out what they need, we must then comprehensively provide what they need. The program must be truly accessible for our homeless person. After we achieve this, the homeless person will access the service and will be successful. The thing I want to add is that social support for our homeless person is very crucial after they have gone through a program like drug rehabilitation or the person may relapse. This is more of a state issue. The local community can step in and aid a homeless individual after an individual has finished a social program like drug rehab. For the most motivated member of our homeless community, we must provide more programs like immediate housing and access to detox beds. By doing this, we will get a member of our homeless community who is motivated to get off a substance, into housing and we will provide referrals for a person in need to other social agencies. We must over come the transportation needs that our homeless have if we are going to ensure there success. Why can we not fund-raise as a community around these issues? The other and last thing that I think is important in outreach is actually going out to the camp site of a homeless person. We as concerned community members and social service providers must go out to the camp site of a homeless individual and make first contact. From here, trust is developed. With how crucial homeless outreach is for our nations homeless, we must fight for programs like AB. 2034 where social service providers receive funding from California to make first contact with homeless individuals who are in deep need of social service programs like mental health treatment that the state provides. The governor would like to cut the AB. 2034 program and force the counties of the state to pay for AB. 2034 from funds that have been given to counties through the Mental Health Services Act commonly known as Prop 63. If such a cut was approved, there would be 4,000 or so homeless individuals at risk of becoming homeless. This would be a travesty and this must be avoided. So I encourage community members all over the state to communicate with the governor’s office and encourage the governor to preserve funding to AB. 2034. For our local communities with a local city council and a business association, I encourage the businesses to establish a partnership with high income residents to fund the infrastructure that will allow homeless outreach to occur. With outreach to our homeless communities, can we find hope for the reduction of social problems and a furthering of social mobility for our homeless?
With trust can the top be achieved? Please use my essay for the promotion of conversation around the issue.
Best,
Richard Cipian
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