"I have parents who provide me with care that I have done nothing to earn; for young adults who for whatever reason don't have a caring family, there is no real institutional substitute."
During Winter Quarter 2014, I chose the service learning track of Geography 331, Global Poverty and Care. To complete the service requirement, I chose to volunteer at ROOTS Young Adult Shelter on the Ave. When I showed up for the first of three training sessions I attended in order to volunteer as a Dinner Meal Team member, the instruction I received from ROOTS's volunteer coordinator seemed like overkill to me. As she discussed the societal mechanisms that contributed to the problem of young adult homelessness and its psychological and emotional impact, I wondered why I needed to know street kids' backgrounds before I could effectively serve them food. I signed up to work at ROOTS because I liked the idea of helping out in my own neighborhood, but admittedly also because I thought working in the kitchen would be simple and straightforward. In the following weeks, I learned very quickly that helping the homeless is anything but easy, and while my nonchalant attitude quickly changed, my education was just beginning.
My second training session was a conflict de-escalation class geared toward all new volunteers at the shelter. For three hours, I completed worksheets about emotional triggers and conversation techniques and role-played with other new volunteers. Coming away from the session, I was terrified to begin work the next week - I had never faced a situation where I needed training in case someone pulled out a knife or displayed serious mental health problems. While I didn't recognize it at the time, that fear was the first step for me, a privileged college kid, towards understanding homelessness on a visceral level. The very situations I was so worried about encountering were not far out of the ordinary for the clients at ROOTS, on the street and even in the shelter. In Global Poverty and Care, I was learning about the fallacy of individual responsibility and the reality of systemic disadvantage. I pieced the dangers of homeless life into the puzzle of this disadvantage, and, although still nervous, reported to my first shift in the kitchen the next week eager to learn more.
During that first shift and in the weeks that followed, I met people facing odds that seemed insurmountable. Many of the clients who came to the kitchen window belonged to the same groups I was learning about in class: new immigrants struggling to find work, LGBTQ folks kicked out of their family homes, and foster kids who had aged out of the system. In class, these groups' stories were troubling; in the kitchen at ROOTS, where I saw clients' dejected postures, downcast eyes, and even self-inflicted scars, the full, wrenching tragedy and individual consequences of those stories were inescapable. The U.S. welfare system is founded on the assumption that people are poor because they are lazy, but the people I met at ROOTS fought a monumental struggle just to get through the day, stay safe, and find food and shelter. Without a system of support to provide these basic needs, how could they focus on pulling themselves out of poverty?
While my studies in Global Poverty and Care made it obvious to me that ROOTS's clients' situation was the result of larger social patterns, the clients themselves often internalized the more prevalent narrative of individual responsibility. While homelessness is clearly physically draining and even dangerous, I had not considered its emotional and psychological toll. I will never forget the third training session I attended: a young woman with her own history of homelessness was also there, and she got into a heated argument with our instructor over how to interact with homeless people. She insisted that the people she had lived with on the street had been completely to blame for their situation. From what I had seen at ROOTS and learned in class, I knew this was not the case, but I realized then how easy it would be, told "no" by welfare agencies over and over, to start to believe that it was my own fault if I couldn't support myself. I have parents who provide me with care that I have done nothing to earn; for young adults who for whatever reason don't have a caring family, there is no real institutional substitute. Consequently, while I am considered a useful member of society as a university student, people my age who may have worked far harder and struggled much more than I are stigmatized by society and ignored by passersby.
I most likely would have reached this conclusion through my academic studies alone, but working at ROOTS showed me its great importance in the lives of individuals. I glimpsed the difficult realities of life on the street, and it instilled in me a great respect for those who can survive it and still find the energy to aspire to more. Rather than eyeing panhandlers on the Ave suspiciously, I began to look them in the eye in recognition - a few I even greet as friends today. ROOTS jolted me out of my fog of privilege and self-interest and showed me the community around me in greater clarity than I had ever seen it, as well as the place I could hold within it. I learned that on the street, I can be the help and encouragement street people might need to get through the day, better their situation, or even just feel like a worthy human being. And I got angry - angry at social systems that tell impoverished people that they are outsiders, that they are less-than. I may never know firsthand what it is like to live on the street, but I can use my privilege to make it better for those who do by volunteering, lobbying, and teaching what I have learned. When I showed up for that first training session at ROOTS in January, I watched the clock and found myself counting the number of weeks I would have to return. By March, I was signing up for more shifts after spring break. I discovered what it means to belong to a bigger community, and while I will never deserve the life of ease I have been given, I am determined to use it to serve that community.
I have attached my final paper for Global Poverty and Care, a critical analysis of ROOTS's methods of caring. Professor Victoria Lawson cautioned her students to be aware that we would "fall in love" with the organizations we volunteered for, making it difficult for us to scrutinize their efficacy against the method of care ethics she had taught us. Call me lovestruck, but ROOTS opened my eyes to how an organization ought to meet its clients where they are with compassion and support. When my schedule allows, I still pick up dinner shifts at the shelter here and there. I know that the work I am able to do through ROOTS, though a small contribution to what must ultimately be a much larger solution, is truly needed and truly useful.
My second training session was a conflict de-escalation class geared toward all new volunteers at the shelter. For three hours, I completed worksheets about emotional triggers and conversation techniques and role-played with other new volunteers. Coming away from the session, I was terrified to begin work the next week - I had never faced a situation where I needed training in case someone pulled out a knife or displayed serious mental health problems. While I didn't recognize it at the time, that fear was the first step for me, a privileged college kid, towards understanding homelessness on a visceral level. The very situations I was so worried about encountering were not far out of the ordinary for the clients at ROOTS, on the street and even in the shelter. In Global Poverty and Care, I was learning about the fallacy of individual responsibility and the reality of systemic disadvantage. I pieced the dangers of homeless life into the puzzle of this disadvantage, and, although still nervous, reported to my first shift in the kitchen the next week eager to learn more.
During that first shift and in the weeks that followed, I met people facing odds that seemed insurmountable. Many of the clients who came to the kitchen window belonged to the same groups I was learning about in class: new immigrants struggling to find work, LGBTQ folks kicked out of their family homes, and foster kids who had aged out of the system. In class, these groups' stories were troubling; in the kitchen at ROOTS, where I saw clients' dejected postures, downcast eyes, and even self-inflicted scars, the full, wrenching tragedy and individual consequences of those stories were inescapable. The U.S. welfare system is founded on the assumption that people are poor because they are lazy, but the people I met at ROOTS fought a monumental struggle just to get through the day, stay safe, and find food and shelter. Without a system of support to provide these basic needs, how could they focus on pulling themselves out of poverty?
While my studies in Global Poverty and Care made it obvious to me that ROOTS's clients' situation was the result of larger social patterns, the clients themselves often internalized the more prevalent narrative of individual responsibility. While homelessness is clearly physically draining and even dangerous, I had not considered its emotional and psychological toll. I will never forget the third training session I attended: a young woman with her own history of homelessness was also there, and she got into a heated argument with our instructor over how to interact with homeless people. She insisted that the people she had lived with on the street had been completely to blame for their situation. From what I had seen at ROOTS and learned in class, I knew this was not the case, but I realized then how easy it would be, told "no" by welfare agencies over and over, to start to believe that it was my own fault if I couldn't support myself. I have parents who provide me with care that I have done nothing to earn; for young adults who for whatever reason don't have a caring family, there is no real institutional substitute. Consequently, while I am considered a useful member of society as a university student, people my age who may have worked far harder and struggled much more than I are stigmatized by society and ignored by passersby.
I most likely would have reached this conclusion through my academic studies alone, but working at ROOTS showed me its great importance in the lives of individuals. I glimpsed the difficult realities of life on the street, and it instilled in me a great respect for those who can survive it and still find the energy to aspire to more. Rather than eyeing panhandlers on the Ave suspiciously, I began to look them in the eye in recognition - a few I even greet as friends today. ROOTS jolted me out of my fog of privilege and self-interest and showed me the community around me in greater clarity than I had ever seen it, as well as the place I could hold within it. I learned that on the street, I can be the help and encouragement street people might need to get through the day, better their situation, or even just feel like a worthy human being. And I got angry - angry at social systems that tell impoverished people that they are outsiders, that they are less-than. I may never know firsthand what it is like to live on the street, but I can use my privilege to make it better for those who do by volunteering, lobbying, and teaching what I have learned. When I showed up for that first training session at ROOTS in January, I watched the clock and found myself counting the number of weeks I would have to return. By March, I was signing up for more shifts after spring break. I discovered what it means to belong to a bigger community, and while I will never deserve the life of ease I have been given, I am determined to use it to serve that community.
I have attached my final paper for Global Poverty and Care, a critical analysis of ROOTS's methods of caring. Professor Victoria Lawson cautioned her students to be aware that we would "fall in love" with the organizations we volunteered for, making it difficult for us to scrutinize their efficacy against the method of care ethics she had taught us. Call me lovestruck, but ROOTS opened my eyes to how an organization ought to meet its clients where they are with compassion and support. When my schedule allows, I still pick up dinner shifts at the shelter here and there. I know that the work I am able to do through ROOTS, though a small contribution to what must ultimately be a much larger solution, is truly needed and truly useful.