Community Action and the Homeless Population:

Summary of Survey Results and Materials for Community Action Group

Survey

Initially we conducted a focus group with about ten clients at Volunteers of America (VOA) detoxification program and did individual surveys with about ten clients living at Palmer Court and in scattered site housing programs through The Road Home.  All of the clients were asked the same six questions about the biggest issues facing the homeless community, what the broader community can do about them, what they can do themselves, and what they would do if they started a homeless service agency.  The answers varied widely but there were common themes including a desire to be involved, but a lack of knowledge or confidence about how to do so.  The majority of people that we talked to had lots of ideas and it seemed to mean a lot to have the chance to share them.

In your opinion, what are the biggest issues or concerns facing the homeless community?

• access to medical, dental, mental health, substance use treatment services
• need more housing
• need more jobs
• drug use, alcohol use among the homeless population
• some people don’t know how to navigate the system
• ”there’s no place to take your kids if you’re detoxing”
• need for more services such as HUD program at VOA Detox Center
• difficult to navigate systems such as Department of Workforce Services, housing programs
• dangers of being homeless, feeling unsafe especially for women and children
• belongings get stolen, lost, destroyed
• lack of stability, families fall apart
• difficulty with hygiene, meeting basic needs
• felt disconnected from society    
•  some people "slip through cracks", might need more intensive services

What is something that the community can do to change these issues?

• more housing
• health care
• more jobs
• reach out to homeless individuals to help them access services
• be informed, reduce stigma about homeless population
• don’t just have fundraisers, be aware of the real problems
• free camping with sanitation services
• build a tiny house community
• more options for shelters
• don’t give to panhandlers-donate to the shelter
• improve Midvale overflow shelter
• more drug treatment programs, don’t break up families for treatment
• parenting and finance classes for people in shelters

What is something that you can do to take action on one of these issues?

• participate in volunteer projects (on street outreach teams, at Welfare Square)
• tell own story to offer hope to others and to inform decision makers, increase awareness of issues
• ”I like to think that talking to you guys makes a difference”
• participate in USARA (Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness)
• substance use is a major issue in homeless community
• ”I could do a lot, but who is going to listen?”, hard to do more without resources
• advocate, vote, go to the Capitol (sometimes expressed fear or lack of knowledge about process)
• create a campground where people can camp legally
• tell people about the shelter and other resources
• one individual works at the Bicycle Collective-stated that having a bike enables people to be independent and allows greater access to the community
• talk to people about building homes for the homeless
• make sandwiches to pass out to people (already does this sometimes)
• multiple people expressed a desire to be involved, have something productive to do

What would you need to be able to take those actions?

• staff who could help me get involved
• get on schedule at meetings with decision makers, connections to decision makers in community
• feel able to speak mind without fear of retaliation
• political influence, money
• suggested that decision makers spend time living as a homeless person for a week, this would give them a new perspective
• make sandwiches with a larger group of people, everyone can chip in to buy supplies

What is the biggest hurdle you have faced individually while experiencing homelessness?

• being on the street (“sleeping outside was terrifying”)
• lack of identification
• transportation
• not feeling safe
• can be hard in shelter for individuals who identify as gay or transgender
• hard to have to leave shelter at 7:30am
• relapse
• being judged, people don’t listen to my story, lack of connection with the world
• people tend to go back to homelessness even if they don’t want to-since it’s what they’re familiar with
• difficult to manage injuries
• multiple people talked about the positive impact of staff

If you were to start an agency to work with the homeless community, what services would you provide?

• create more housing (turn abandoned buildings into housing)
• more substance use and mental health treatment
• more help accessing different services, gear services toward homeless population (“DWS required me to wear business casual 5 times a week when I came into apply for a job. I didn’t have 5 sets of clothes and I couldn’t keep my clothes clean on the streets”.)
• ”We need services like in the HUD program where they have a safe place where we can be while we are taking care of all of the things”.
• create jobs, job placement
• educational programs, legal services
• parenting classes, finance classes on site at shelter
• a “one stop shop” with all the resources we need in one location
• food bank, donations of clothing, hygiene products
• make a safe haven for teenage runaways
• provide bicycles to people experiencing homelessness
• provide things for people to do
• hands on services-being on the streets and meeting people
• "it is very hard to reach bottom and try to climb back up"-this individual suggested a need for something to give people worth

Action Plan

In the advocacy group we discussed what advocacy means, different tactics to use when making one’s voice heard and specific issues where participants can use advocacy.  We presented two handouts which are attached. (“Informal Advocacy Plan” and “Other Ways to Advocate”).  Throughout the group participants talked about using skills from the advocacy plan to advocate for themselves with other agencies or with their peers.  It seems that increasing advocacy skills in order to get their own needs met was a top priority for this group.  If we did the group again we would have more focus on individual advocacy.

 

At the end of the group we asked participants a few questions in order to evaluate whether they found it to be helpful and interesting.  Participants stated that it was “extremely” helpful and reported that they want to learn how to advocate for themselves and others in similar situations.  Several participants said that they haven’t learned about advocacy anywhere else.  Some group members felt that they wouldn’t be able to engage in community advocacy until they had completed treatment or cleared up legal matters while others stated that they thought being involved in advocacy could help them with their recovery.  When we asked the participants for ways to improve the group they suggested that we do it with more groups of people.

INFORMAL ADVOCACY PLAN

1. What is the problem or issue? If there is more than one, focus on one at a time:
2. What is your goal?
3. What facts do you know?
4. What additional facts or information might you need regarding this situation, such as laws, rules or policies?
5. How can you go about gathering this information?
6. What are some possible solutions to this problem/issue (be specific)?
7. What are some barriers to these solutions?
8. Who are the decision-makers that you need to influence to solve this problem/issue?

Pick one solution and discuss the strategies and tactics you will use to achieve this solution.

Complete the information below to assist you in initiating your action plan.

1. I will call/meet with/write to ______________________________ by the following date: _____________.
2. If this person does not resolve the situation by the following date __________, then I will call/meet with/write to ________________________________________.
3. Documentation that I will need:
4. Other people who can help me:
5. What I expect the other side to do:
6. Strategies for what’s next:

Keep in mind that the strategy you use to obtain the advocacy goal may not be successful. It is helpful to think about what you will do if you don’t get what you want the first, second, or even third time around.

If your plan does not work, you may need to review your strategy, what went wrong and alternative ways to resolve your concern. You may want to revisit some of the information-gathering questions listed above and consider asking yourself the following questions:

1. What will I do if the strategy doesn’t work? What is the backup plan?
    
2. What went wrong? Why didn’t the strategy work?
    
   Brainline.org,. (2015). Retrieved 30 March 2015, from               http://www.brainline.org/downloads/PDFs/Advocacy 

OTHER WAYS TO ADVOCATE:

 

-Write a letter to a legislator/member of Congress/ Senator etc.

-http://www.utah.gov/government/contactgov.html

 

-Get connected with a local advocacy group (USARA, Crossroads Urban Center etc.)

4th Street Consumer Advisory Board

The Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) is made up of current patients who are homeless or formerly homeless.  CAB does outreach to homeless individuals and advises Fourth Street Clinic's Senior Management Team and full Board of Directors.

If you are interested in becoming a CAB member or would like to schedule members to speak or host a booth, call 801.289.6344.

www.fourthstreetclinic.org                409 West 400 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101

 

USARA (Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness)

USARA spearheads Utah's efforts to educate policy makers and the community about substance use disorders.  USARA advocates for access to health care and funding for prevention, treatment and recovery support services.

For ways to get involved go to: http://www.myusara.com/advocacy

1-855-698-7272                      180 East 2100 South, Suite 102, South Salt Lake, UT 84115

 

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)                                                                                                  NAMI gives individuals with mental illnesses and their families a space to make their voices heard.  NAMI members advocate to increase research, end discrimination, reduce barriers to successful life in the community and promote timely, comprehensive and effective mental health services and supports.                                                                                                                                            For ways to get involved go to: http://www.namiut.org/take-action                                           (801) 810-6083

 

Crossroads Urban Center

Crossroads Urban Center encourages everyone to get involved with the political process and advocate for low income Utahns.  Crossroads Urban Center has grassroots groups that meet with elected officials and organize protests and other events to highlight poverty issues.  You can learn more about those groups in the "Fighting Poverty section of this website.                                                                                      www.crossroadsurbancenter.org  (go to “Fighting Poverty” section for info. about advocacy)                                                                                    1-888-747-8482                                  347 South 400 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84111

 

-Attend your local community council meeting

 

-http://www.slcdocs.com/comcoun/pdfs/Community_Orgs_List.pdf

 

-Speak up about concerns or issues you have with agencies you’re utilizing

SCEP Assessment Results & Action Plan Blog Post

Assessment Results

Assessment Trends and Patterns

• One of the trends we identified in our individual interviews was a common theme in response to our  questions:  What is something that you can do to take action on one of these issues? What would you need to be able to take those actions?  We found that many of those interviewed had a lot of ideas about how services utilized by the homeless community could be improved or enhanced but responded that they did not know what to do about the issues they identified.  Several of the individual indicated they would be interested in helping, but that they do not know the resources or know how or where to speak up.
• Another pattern we identified was individuals reporting barriers to accessing services and limitations to navigating the system.
• Individuals reported incurring specific misdemeanor charges for trespassing or loitering, and violations incurred while riding public transportation.
• Another common theme that was reported by our interviews and focus groups was the prevalence of drugs and alcohol near the shelter.  Individuals reported that boredom and not having anything productive to do was part of the reason people use frequently.  Many individuals reported having experienced addiction to substances themselves and talked about needing more substance abuse and mental health treatment services, more easily accessible substance abuse services and about how their perspective could be useful to policy makers who develop these services.  Approximately “38 percent of all homeless persons [in the state of Utah] experience mental illness or substance abuse” (State of Utah, 2014), so the input of these individuals could shape policy that would impact a large portion of the homeless population.
• Some social service providers do not seem to gear services to the homeless population.
• Multiple people talked about homeless people “camping out” and suggested creating campgrounds with sanitation and other services where homeless people could camp safely and legally.
• Individuals identified different kinds of need based on gender roles and reported that juggling child supervision complicates service utilization.  They suggested creating services that better accommodate more complicated needs.
• Many individuals talked about the need for more homes for those experiencing homelessness to be able to move to.  One individual suggested that there are empty warehouses and other buildings that could be turned into housing fairly easily.  The state of Utah has determined “percent of renters who cannot afford rental housing for a two bedroom apartment in Utah was estimated around 47 percent in 2014” (State of Utah, 2014).  The need for affordable housing is shared by homeless individuals as well as large numbers of low income individuals who have not experienced homelessness.
• There was a desire to differentiate between what is viewed as “career homeless” versus “situational homelessness.”  Needs and resource utilization can look very different for those who experience brief periods of homelessness compared with those who are chronically homeless and may be hesitant to engage with mainstream resources and service providers.

Quotations from Interviews

• One woman reported her desire to help get more housing for homeless individuals, “I’d talk to people, but I don’t know who I would talk to.”  A different female, responding to the question:  “What do you need to be able to take those actions?” replied, “properly trained; better training program.”  A male reported, “I could do a lot, but who is going to listen?”  A female reported, “It’s hard to do more when you don’t have resources.”  A male identified one way for individuals to understand homelessness is “I suggest that decision makers spend time living as a homeless person for a week---it would give a new perspective.”
• A male reported, “For people who who are mentally ill or who don’t make right choices some of them don’t know how to navigate the system.”  A different female reported, “You need to tell people where to go,” in reference for not knowing where to access services.  One male suggested that “we need to look at cases that system doesn’t work for--- you need more intensive services….different from others who are trying to get help.”
• A male reported, “I was self medicating to forget the past; to get rid of pain.”  He continued, “We need more drug treatment programs.”  A different male reported, “The shelter is drug infested.”  He continued on, “We need to provide things for people to do.  It’s boring so people drink and smoke.”
• One individual reported, “DWS required me to wear business casual [clothing] 5 times a week when I came into apply for a job.  I didn’t have 5 sets of clothes and I couldn’t keep my clothes clean on the streets”.

Action Plan

Plan for Addressing the Issue

    The plan for our project is to hold a group with individuals who have experienced homelessness to provide them with advocacy training and information on how to navigate community meetings and effectively get their voices heard.  We are open to whatever form of advocacy or community involvement these individuals are interested in pursuing.  One suggestion we propose will be the upcoming public input session for the Homeless Services Site Evaluation Commission.  We plan to propose attending this session, bringing with us a group of interested homeless individuals.  If we do attend this meeting, or take part in any other form of advocacy we will hold a debriefing session afterward.

    We also plan to create a document which summarizes the data we gathered from all of the homeless and formerly homeless individuals that we interviewed and distribute this to homeless service agencies including The Road Home and Volunteers of America.  The agencies have expressed interest in hearing feedback and suggestions about homeless services from this population.

Goals for Addressing the Issue/Problem

    “Phenomena as diverse as poor schools, encounters with the law, and early pregnancy may each contribute independently to withdrawal from the political sphere.  These various characteristics of economic hardship can both directly and indirectly impact political participation among young adults” (Lanning).  We are looking to combat disenfranchisement of individuals who have experienced homelessness.  Our goal will be to help facilitate increased empowerment through participants becoming informed about community issues and using their experiential knowledge to create change.  We “recognize [that] homeless people have little control over the institutions that shaped their lives” (Cress & Snow, 2000) and are curious about the impact it might have for this population to become more empowered and involved in decision making across the board, especially in regard to issues that affect them.

Social Change Model

    The social change model we feel is most appropriate to meet our goal is “organizing functional communities”. We believe that our goal aligns with this model because we are asking individuals within the homeless community to take “action for social justice focused on advocacy and changing behaviors and attitudes. (Gamble, 2010).  Our project will bring together like minded people in the homeless community with the goal of advocating for any of the wide range of issues that affect their community.  The homeless individuals we interviewed talked about wanting to use their experiences to “change behaviors and attitudes” (Gamble, 2010) of policy makers and the community at large in order to provide services that better meet the needs of the homeless population.  In implementing our advocacy group and action we hope to take a small step toward beginning this work.

Strategies and Tactics

    Our primary strategy is to give the “homeless a voice and asking them to identify community solutions” (Fisher, 2012) and ways that they can contribute to planning and policy making.  In order to accomplish this we plan to do a training on advocacy with a group of homeless individuals.  We are still working on planning the specifics of the group and gathering materials that we will use.  Some of the topics that we plan to cover include skills and leadership training, political education, and training in organizational ideology and culture (Minieri, 2007) so that the individuals have knowledge about current issues that affect their community and are able to appropriately and effectively provide input into the issues.

We will then have an opportunity to put those skills learned in practice by attending the committee to discuss relocation of the homeless shelter in Salt Lake City.  This project has taught us a lot about being open to the needs of the population we are working with, and we remain open to developing a different advocacy plan if the group does not wish to attend this meeting. We think that any advocacy efforts should be driven by the experiential knowledge within the homeless community and want to remember to present ourselves as “as co-learners, not experts.” (Fisher, 2012)

Manner in which the Target Population can Play a Key Role in the Efforts

    Our original idea was a kind of “get out the vote” drive with homeless individuals; doing a voters registration drive around the Rio Grande area.  “If democracy is characterized by an autonomous citizenry in which citizens act as equals, then when significant numbers of citizens abstain or are denied the right to participate, government necessarily becomes less democratic. Consequently, a democratic ideal can be described in which all citizens would exercise the voting franchise” (Lanning).  

Based on conversations with homeless individuals this idea has since been modified.  We found that while some homeless individuals do vote, the population as a whole does not seem to be passionate about increasing their voter turnout.  However, the homeless community does have a wealth of information based on their personal experiences about what programs and services work best for them, and how to improve services to better meet their needs.  The community was very excited to share this knowledge with us and seemed to have a desire to share this information with decision makers, and to do a great variety of things to improve life for others facing similar struggles.  The main barrier that the population identified to being involved in this action was not knowing how to be involved and feeling afraid or intimidated to do so.

Our goal now is to, in some way, help the homeless community learn leadership and advocacy skills so that they will have a direct role in participating in social justice movements.  We seek to encourage a”critical consciousness, strengths orientation, self-determination, and communal responsibility, with a poor and disadvantaged population advocating in political and social venues” (Brubaker).  Historically, social movements composed of homeless individuals have accomplished significant change for their communities including an organization in Philadelphia that applied for a “grant to open a shelter, the first in the nation operated by homeless people” (Cress & Snow, 2000) and developing “soup kitchens, public restrooms, showers, job programs, and permanent housing”. (Cress & Snow, 2000)  Learning from the experiences of these predecessors and educating our group about other groups of homeless individuals who have made significant change could empower and build motivation among the community members participating in our project.

Evaluation for Effectiveness

    We recognize how our target population is generally stuck or focused on stage one and two of Maslow’s hierarchy (Physiological and Safety/Security) while a part of our goal is to get them looking more at integrating stages three and four (Love/Belonging and Self-Esteem) into their lives.  In the same way we have reorganized our ideas of getting homeless people to vote, evaluating the effectiveness of our intentions, in broad terms, may require it’s own reorganization.  Fostering a sense of community involvement/belonging/ownership can be difficult to measure.  There is a 2014 study conducted in Vancouver which examines community integration of people who experienced homelessness after involvement in various Housing First model programs.  Living in “independent apartments” was associated with increased “psychological integration” for participants, who were more likely to endorse statements related to the emotional components of community but without much direct interaction with their neighbors.  “Congregate residence,” - where individuals or families have a living quarters but shares with other residents a common dining room, recreational room, or other facilities - were more familiar with their neighbors, but not indicate attachment to the “emotional components of community” (Patterson).  We are, in part, looking for strategy of effectiveness which incorporates neighborhood familiarity and investment on very human terms, with neighbors, but also within their individual components of community.  Our goal is to help facilitate increased empowerment through participants becoming informed about community issues and using their experiential knowledge to create change, measurements for which can be difficult to evaluate.  That being said, our evaluation process will include a short survey at the end of our training session to understand if the group members learned something and found the information beneficial.  We will also have a debriefing session following our committee meeting to obtain qualitative data on the effectiveness of the experience as a whole.

References

Brubaker, M. D., Garrett, M. T., Rivera, E. T., & Tate, K. A. (2010). Justice Making in Groups

for Homeless Adults: The Emancipatory Communitarian Way. The Journal for

Specialists in Group Work, 124-133.

Cress, D., & Snow, D. (2000).  The outcomes of homeless mobilization:  The influence of

organization, disruption, political, mediation, and framing.  American Journal of

Sociology, 105 (4), 1063-1104.  Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3003888?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Fisher, C. (2012). Transforming Communities: Faith Based Social Justice Group Work with

Homeless. National Association of Christians in Social Work.

Gamble, D. N. & Weil, M. (2010). Conceptual frameworks and models for community practice.  

In: Community Practice Skills: Local to Global Perspectives. New York, NY: Columbia

University Press. ISBN: 987-0-231-11003-7

Goldstein, A. O., Calleson, D.,  Bearman, R., Steiner, Beat D., Frasier, P.,  Slatt, L.  (2009).

Teaching advanced leadership skills in community service to (ALSCS) medical students.  

Academic Medicine, 84 (6), 754-764.  doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181a40660

Lanning, K. (2008). Democracy, Voting, and Disenfranchisement in the United States: A Social

Psychological Perspective. Journal Of Social Issues, 64(3), 431-446.

http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=33521405&site=ehost-live

Minieri, J., & Getsos, P. (2007). Developing leaders from all walks of life. In J. Minieri & P.

Gesos (Eds). Tools for Radical Democracy (pp. 81-108).  New York: Jossey-Bass.

Patterson, M. L. (2014). Community participation and belonging among formerly homeless

adults with mental illness after 12 months of Housing First in Vancouver, British

Columbia: A randomized controlled trial. Community Mental Health Journal , 604-611.

Stanistreet, Paul. (2010). We’re empowering learners who feel disempowered. Adults Learning,

22 (n4), 18-19.

State of Utah.  Comprehensive Report on Homelessness. (2014)

http://jobs.utah.gov/housing/scso/documents/homelessness2014.pdf