If you don't vote it might be because you have other complaints.

I had two conversations about voting with formerly homeless individuals today at work that I thought were interesting and relevant to our project.  The Department of Workforce Services application (for benefits like Medicaid and foodstamps) includes a question at the end that asks if the applicant would like to be registered to vote at their current address.  This must have been included at some point in an attempt to increase participation in voting.

While helping two different clients with this application I read the question out loud asking both of them if they would like to be registered to vote.  They both gave me a very firm no.  One was more vocal about her feelings and explained that she has too much going on in her life to care about voting, and she did not seem to think that her vote would make much of a difference.  Both of these clients are experiencing very significant family stressors and an inability to meet their basic needs.  One of them had a severe toothache, and repeatedly apologized to me because her mouth was swollen and she had difficulty talking.  Her primary goal in completing the DWS application was to secure medical coverage to address the toothache.  The thought came to my mind that I was perhaps asking her to concern herself with a higher order need at a time when her lower order needs were screaming out to be met.

These experiences made me think about how one of the very big barriers to political participation in the homeless community is the fact that being politically active is much higher up one's list of needs compared to food, shelter, medical care, and knowing that your family is safe.  I think this is probably one of the key barriers, and one that I do not know how to overcome.

Group Updates:
Since our last blog post we have all been working together to gather sources in preparation for our final paper and are looking forward to diving more deeply into our project next semester.  Some things that we are currently working on include:
-Sue is scheduling a group at VOA Detox with a specific group of clients who are chronically homeless and remain in detox for a longer period of time while they work on attending treatment and attaining permanent housing.  In this group they will do the needs assessment and have discussion around the issue of voting and political involvement in the homeless community.
-Wendy is planning to distribute the needs assessment to clients living at Freedom Landing, which is a housing program for homeless veterans.
-Josh is writing the first draft of our paper, and we will all work together to finalize it over the next two weeks.
-I looked up the 2013 Comprehensive Report on Homelessness done by the state of Utah (http://jobs.utah.gov/housing/documents/homelessness2013.pdf), which has a lot of interesting information about homelessness in Utah.  It is estimated that slightly over 15,000 people experienced homelessness in the state in 2013.