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

 

Assessment Plan

Assessment Plan

1. Recruitment Process
• Our recruitment process includes connecting with a variety of homeless providers to reach our target population.
• Sue, Josh, and Cynnamon plan to meet with the Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) with the Fourth Street Clinic on Feb 18th.  The CAB is composed of members who have all previously experienced homelessness.
• Emily is working to reach out to staff at the Road Home to help us connect with individuals experiencing homelessness.
• Sue has connected with the Volunteers of America (VOA) Detox HUD program to run a focus group with the chronically homeless individuals in that program.
• Cynnamon plans to connect with case workers at Valley Storefront to connect with individuals who are experiencing homelessness and a mental illness.
2. Approximate number of people to include in the assessment.
• We want to include a variety of individuals within our target population.   To accomplish this task we plan to speak to clients working with several different homeless service agencies including Fourth Street Clinic, The Road Home and VOA.
• Approximately 8-10 people will participate in the focus group at VOA Detox.
• We will conduct interviews with 6 or more individuals through the Road Home and their housing programs.
3. Approximate number of focus groups/interviews/surveys to be conducted.
• 1 meeting with the Consumer Advisory Board at Fourth Street Clinic.
• 1 focus group conducted with the VOA Detox HUD program which serves the chronically homeless.
• We plan to conduct in-person interviews with approximately 6 individuals within our target population.
4. Time and location of the assessment.
• CAB meeting will be February 18th at 6pm at the Fourth Street Clinic.
• Focus Group will be held at the VOA Detox program, on February 4th at 6:00 pm.
• Interviews will be completed with our target population over the next 6 weeks.
5. Roles and responsibilities of persons planning and facilitating the assessment, including data collection and analysis plan.
• Sue is planning to facilitate the focus group, with Emily attending to take notes.
• Sue, Josh, and Cynnamon will be attending the CAB meeting, however we are not sure the time will be allotted to speak with them.  We will hope to conduct a brief assessment and obtain email addresses to send out a full survey/assessment.
• Emily has submitted our interview questions to The Road Home for approval and then will meet with clients in housing and the shelter to complete in-person interviews.
• We all will be conducting interviews with the target population.
• Once we have all the information gathered we will review it as a group and analyze our data.

Semi-Structured Assessment Guide

1. Introductory verbal script with purpose and procedures of assessment.

• Thank you all for taking the time to participate in our focus group.  My name is _______, we are from the University of Utah Social Work program.  You were all asked to participate due to having experienced homelessness.  We are inquiring about needs and community issues that may directly affect the homeless population, and how you would like to engage in taking action about these issues.  There are no wrong answers and we hope that you can share with us your point of view.  “Keep in mind that we’re just as interested in negative comments as positive  comments, and at times the negative comments are the most helpful.”  (Kruger, 2002).   Please know that your name and any identifying information will remain confidential.  We will use your first names during the focus group but will not publish any names with our results.  You will see us taking notes during the focus group so that we can remember the comments that you share.

2. Discussion of informed consent.

• We will discuss informed consent to let the clients know who we are, the purpose of the focus group and that participation is voluntary. At any time if a participant is not comfortable with the questions they can skip the question and also ask to not participate further. We want to ensure that all participants know that if they do not wish to participate at any time of the focus group this would in no way affect their services at the program they are enrolled in. We will also reiterate confidentiality and explain how their information will be protected. All of this information can also be included in a Informed Consent Form that may be used.
• This is an example of the Informed Consent Form that we may use:

Consent to Participate in Focus Group Study as part a

Needs Assessment for Individuals Who are/have Experienced Homelessness

The purpose of the group discussion and the nature of the questions have been explained to me. I consent to take part in a focus group about my experiences and feelings towards advocating for issues in our community affecting those who are experiencing homelessness. I also consent to be audio-recorded during this focus group discussion. My participation is voluntary. I understand that I am free to leave the group at any time. If I decide not to participate at any time during the discussion, my decision will in no way affect the services that I receive at Volunteers of America Adult Detox. None of my experiences or thoughts will be shared with anyone outside of the University Of Utah, College Of Social Work unless all identifying information is removed first. The information that I provide during the focus group will be grouped with answers from other people so that I cannot be identified.

Please Print Your Name: _____________________________ Date:  ________________

Please Sign Your Name:  _____________________________ Date:  ________________

Witness Signature: __________________________________ Date:  ________________

http://www.rowan.edu/colleges/chss/facultystaff/focusgrouptoolkit.pdf

3. List of questions to be asked.  We will use similar questions in the focus groups and interviews.

Gender ?: ______________

Age Group: ___ under 18 ___ 18-25 ___ 26-35 ___ 36-55 ___56-65 ___ over 65

How long have you lived in the Salt Lake area? __less than 6 months __6-12 months __1-5years __5 years or more

Are you: __currently homeless  or  __formerly homeless and now living in housing?

What is the length of time you have experienced homelessness?

When is the last time you voted?

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

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

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

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

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

4. Wrap-up.

• After concluding our surveys and focus groups we will thank the participants for agreeing to participate in our project.  We will remind them that we are completing a project for school and will pass on what we have learned, but are not in a position to design programs to meet the needs we have discussed.  If participants have any questions about existing services we will do our best to refer them to local agencies, all of us have worked with the homeless population so we have some knowledge about what services are available.  We do not have a budget to provide food or other incentives for participation so are not planning to provide these items.

Final Thoughts

• After gathering data from our population we will review our survey and results from the focus group to determine our next step in formulating our project.
• We initially wanted to do a project that focused on empowering the homeless population to be involved in voting, and assisting them to combat barriers such as difficulty registering that prevented them from voting.  As we thought more about our project we realized we need to gather information directly from the homeless population to know more about their needs, concerns, and the ways that they would like to be involved in change rather than assuming their needs and trying to make change on their behalf.
• We are excited to get the results from our interviews and focus groups, and use those to guide our next steps in the macro group project.

Contextualizing Political Involvement of Individuals Experiencing Homelessness

Contextualizing Political Involvement of Individuals Experiencing Homelessness:

“The Right to be Heard" project

Sue Ativalu, Cynnamon Davis, Emily Horton, Wendy Sorensen,

Arielle Spanvill, Josh Tipton

University of Utah

What is the issue/problem the community has decided to focus on?

Our group has decided to focus on issues of voting and political involvement among individuals experiencing homelessness.  Our three main goals are to connect with the homeless population in Salt Lake City in order to gain an understanding of the issues that they are concerned with, to identify current city, county, state and national issues that affect this population, and to create an opportunity to raise awareness of these issues and facilitate ways for the homeless population to make their voices heard.  We can further understand the context of our focus by identifying key stakeholders, actors, and individuals important to the political participation of individuals experiencing homelessness.  We are looking at this problem from a variety of angles to help us better understand the situation in its entirety and comprehend the barriers that may inhibit political participation.  Individuals experiencing homelessness appear to be under-represented in elections; however this is difficult to track statistically as a fixed address is required in order to vote.  Our preliminary research reveals that homeless individuals are also less likely to make their voices heard through participation in non-voting political action.

For our macro group project we plan to meet with homeless individuals and other stakeholders in the community to understand the issue of political involvement from their perspective.  Key questions include: What barriers to political involvement are faced by the population?  What changes do they feel would benefit their community?  How would the population like to be involved in the political process?  And, what intervention(s) could our project use to help facilitate political involvement?  We are still in the beginning stages of meeting with the community and stakeholders.  We have a meeting set up later in December with the Fourth Street Clinic consumer advisory board, and are exploring the benefits of organizing a focus group and/or distributing and collecting a needs assessment survey to gather further data about the issue.  Once we have gathered sufficient data from the community we will create a plan driven by the feedback we receive from the target population.  The input we gain from the homeless community and other stakeholders will guide the focus of our macro project next semester.

What is causing the issue/problem?

Some of the underlying issues that are causing this problem are due to previous voting barriers that have been put in place throughout United States history.   Historically, voting laws have been a way of disenfranchising certain populations.  These populations including ethnic minorities, women, poor and even young adults have all had to fight for their rights to participate in one of the the foundations of American democracy, public elections.  Originally, only white male citizens who owned property were eligible to participate in elections.  Qualifications of who could be considered a citizen, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” (U.S. Const. Amend. XIV) came through the 14th Amendment.  Restrictions on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (U.S. Const. Amend. XV) were outlawed through the 15th Amendment in 1870, which essentially meant non-white men were legally allowed to vote.  Men of color still faced harassment, intimidation, economic reprisals, physical violence and regional restrictions enforced through “literacy tests” which famously asked “how many bubbles are in a bar of soap” (Daniels, 2008).  Women were not allowed to vote until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.  The 24th Amendment declared the “right of citizens of the United States to vote… shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.” (U.S. Const. Amend. XXIV)  Poll taxes, a fee for service which purportedly generated the funds to cover the costs of running polling stations, helped to keep marginalized poor white and black Americans from participating in elections.  A senator from Mississippi was quoted as saying, "If the poll tax bill passes, the next step will be an effort to remove the registration qualification, the educational qualification of Negroes.  If that is done we will have no way of preventing the Negroes from voting" (Daniels, 2008).  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 created new laws in effort to prevent any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote.” (2006)  While the use of poll taxes in national elections had been abolished by the 24th Amendment, the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to challenge the use of poll taxes in state and local elections.  In 1971 the 26th Amendment further expanded voting rights stating that “the right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.” (U.S. Const. Amend. XXVI)  This was in reaction to protests against the Vietnam War and how the draft was making soldiers of 18 year olds who were not allowed to vote in a country they could be sent off to die for.  

There still exist various voter registration laws which complicate who can participate in elections.  Having been convicted of a felony restricts the voting opportunity for nearly six million, or 2.5 percent, of the US voting age population.  The de facto consequence of this law is that almost 8% of adult African Americans are ineligible to vote because of convictions, compared to 1.8% of the rest of the adult population (Pilkington, 2012).  In thirty one states there are voter identification laws requiring some form of identification at the polls.  In order to vote in Utah, one must be: at least 18 years old on or before Election Day, a United States citizen, a resident of Utah for at least 30 days before Election Day, and have not been officially declared mentally incompetent.  Proof of residence documents, which include the voter’s name and current residential address, are required at the polls for all statewide or municipal elections.  Acceptable documents include; a current and valid driver license or state identification card; other official identification card or license issued by a state governmental body; real estate tax bill or receipt for the current year or the year preceding the date of the election; university, college, or technical college identification card, which includes a photo; a utility bill for the period commencing no earlier than 90 days before Election Day; a bank statement; a paycheck; or a check or other document issued by a unit of government. (State of Utah, 2014)  Many of the above listed requirements can be difficult to provide if you are unemployed, not a student, or homeless.  In fact, most of the above listed acceptable documents are directly associated with having an established place of residence where you pay bills.  

In addition to the existing regulations that make it more difficult for homeless individuals to vote, there are many additional barriers to political engagement for this population.  Many homeless individuals may lack transportation to polling places or to community meetings about issues that affect them.  They may also lack resources to educate themselves about political issues and the exact requirements to vote, so may mistakenly believe that they can not vote because of a past criminal charge or because of their current living situation.  Additionally, “due to the transient nature of this population, it is often difficult to determine where an individual was last registered” (Miller & Gonzales, 2002) leaving the individual confused about where to vote.  Another barrier is that the homeless population “have so often experienced systematic disenfranchisement that they have little reason to believe that their vote matters.” (Miller & Gonzales, 2002).   

Another important barrier to political involvement among homeless populations is that individuals are often focused on much more basic needs such as securing food, shelter and safety, and thus may not feel that political or community involvement is a priority at the moment.  This can be illustrated by an experience that one of the authors, Emily Horton, recently had while working as a case manager for formerly homeless individuals who are in supportive housing programs.  Emily was helping a client fill out an application for Medicaid benefits. The application prompts the applicant to choose to register to vote at their current address.  Emily read the question aloud and the client responded with a very firm “no,” and stated that she had too much going on in her life to care about voting and that she did not believe her vote would make any difference.  The client had recently lost custody of her children, was having difficulty meeting basic needs such as food, and transportation, and had a severe toothache she could not access medical care to address.

What are the effects/consequences of the problem?

Low income and homeless populations consistently “vote at a lower rate than people with higher incomes.” (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012)  At the same time homeless individuals are impacted by decisions related to economic and social issues that higher income individuals do not face.  When issues such as living wage, affordable housing, affordable health care and social welfare programs are discussed, the homeless population does not have easy access to voicing their position and are therefore silenced by the political process. (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012).  Lawmakers continue to effectively criminalize homelessness creating and implementing discriminatory laws under the banner of maintaining public safety, and improving municipal image. (National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, 2013).  Often legislation that disrupts the lives of homeless populations occurs without the input of the affected population.  

David Rosendorf an attorney with expertise in homeless issues asserts, “Voting is the one fundamental right essential to the preservation of all other rights.” (Devlin, 2009) While many people take this right for granted, for homeless individuals this fundamental right is often not even a choice and lack access to having a voice in the political process produces a lack of self-worth and dignity. (Devlin, 2009)  According to Cardinale (2004) the inability to participate in our democratic process fosters alienation and distrust in disenfranchised individuals. It only makes sense that when we weaken civic involvement we weaken the systems that strengthen us as a country thereby creating anger and resentment amongst a group of individuals that have been abandoned by the process.  Cardinale reports that the individuals in his report said they felt like “outsiders” and “rejected” by society. They reported having feelings of apathy and loss of dignity as citizens of the United States.  If we continue to alienate segments of our citizenship population, we will continue to exacerbate mistrust of our federal and local governments. The report highlights issues concerning negative feelings about citizenship, alienation and distrust, and anger and apathy (Cardinale, 2004).  If a population is not represented in the fundamental process of how our country operates then we continue to perpetuate the distance between the “haves” and “have nots.”

Who is the population most affected by these issues?  

Although many marginalized populations are affected by a lack of participation in the political process we are focusing specifically on the homeless population.  In Utah in 2013 over 15,000 adults experienced homelessness, which is about one half of one percent of Utah’s total population.  The homeless population in Utah is quite varied, and does not necessarily fit typical stereotypes about people experiencing homelessness.  Nearly half of the homeless population in Utah is comprised of parents and children, while single men make up only 29% of those experiencing homelessness.  Three percent of this homeless population in Utah experience “chronic” or very long term homelessness while most only stay in homeless shelters for less than two weeks.  A popular myth is that the homeless population is transient, migrating to cities with the best services, however 88% of Utah’s homeless population lived in Utah when they became homeless. (Wrathall, et al., 2013)  

Homelessness exposes individuals and families to traumatic events which often aggravate their current circumstances and challenge their ability to access needed resources and regain self-sufficiency.  Homeless persons often utilize emergency services such as emergency rooms, police and ambulances more than the stably-housed and tend to have more jail stays due to their increased exposure to outdoor elements, violence, and other unsafe or unhealthy environments.  About 73% of all homeless persons experience mental illness, domestic violence or other barriers to stable housing. (Wrathall, et al., 2013)  Additionally, many homeless individuals have “experienced oppression through acts of racism, sexism, ableism, harsh working conditions,highly bureaucratized medical care, being shamed by family and friends for their economic conditions, being pressured into prostitution, and turning to drugs and alcohol to cope with deep emotional pain.” (Brubaker, Garrett, Rivera, & Tate, 2010)

Who are the other stakeholders/actors?

The most important stakeholder in the issue is the homeless population that we are hoping to partner with in working toward change.  Additional stakeholders are other low income populations who may be affected by the same policies around housing and social services, agencies that serve the homeless population, government officials including political candidates and city and state governmental bodies, and all citizens who live near to or interact with the homeless population in Utah.  Any of these stakeholders may face barriers that cause a lack of involvement or enthusiasm for this issue of political involvement from the homeless community, but also have much to gain if it is achieved.

We are planning to reach out to stakeholders, particularly homeless service agencies including the Fourth Street Clinic, Volunteers of America, the Veteran’s Administration and The Road Home, to engage them in our macro project.  The National Coalition for the Homeless has done work nationally to promote engagement in voter registration and education by homeless service agencies.  They have found that many agencies have not previously engaged in this work because they think that they are not allowed to assist with voter registration, staff believe that clients are not interested or they do not have the resources. (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2012)  Agencies with limited resources may be more focused on providing basic needs services as opposed to tackling social justice issues.

There are many benefits to be gained from increased political and community participation among the homeless population.  While “homeless people are often overlooked, misunderstood, and marginalized...the homeless community can collectively form a voting block to help shape the laws that most affect them, especially when small vote margins decide elections” (Miller & Gonzales, 2002)  This voting block could make a big difference in creating social policy that would affect lives beyond the percentage of the Utah population that is experiencing homelessness.  Political and community involvement can help homeless service and government agencies learn what the needs of the homeless population truly are and become better able to meet them.  Finally, this involvement can help entire communities increase “their awareness of society’s stigmatization and marginalization of homeless” (Fisher, 2012) with potentially far reaching effects.

Conclusion

Gaining a greater understanding of the issues and challenges regarding the homeless population voting, taking part in political processes and having a voice in decisions that affect them is just the beginning of our macro project.  We have explored a variety of causes and consequences to our problem  which is giving us a better scope of the issues at hand.  A part of the work we are doing as social workers is to objectively look at our own biases and agendas, so it does not negatively influence our decision making when choosing an intervention.  We continue to gather information from all stakeholders, specifically from homeless individuals, to ensure we have the necessary information we need to formulate  an effective intervention that is informed by the needs and concerns of the targeted population. Overall we hope this may help in our goal towards supporting the homeless population in having their voice heard; because everyone deserves this right.

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.

Cardinale, M. (2004). Triple-decker disenfranchisement: First-person accounts of losing the right to vote among poor, homeless Americans with a felony conviction. The Sentencing Project

Daniels, G. R. (2008). A Vote Delayed is a Vote Denied: A Preemptive Approach to Eliminating Election Administration Legislation that Disenfranchises Unwanted Voters. University of Louisville Law Review, 57-112.

Devlin, S. (2009). "I lost my home, don't take my voice!" Ensuring the Voting Rights of the Homeless Through Negotiated Rulemaking. Journal of Dispute Resolution.

Fisher, C. (2012). Transforming Communities: Faith Based Social Justice Group Work with Homeless. National Association of Christians in Social Work.

Miller, J., & Gonzales, P. (2002). Symposium Constructive Disenfranchisement: The Problems of Access and Ambiguity Facing the American Voter: "I Matter! I Vote!" Overcoming the Disenfranchisement of Homeless and Formerly Homeless Voters. Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review.

National Coalition for the Homeless. (2012). Voting Rights: Registration Manual: You Don't Need a Home to Vote. Washington, DC: National Coalition for the Homeless.

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. (2013). Cruel, inhuman, and degrading: Homelessness in the united states under the international covenant on civil and political rights. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty: Submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Committee.

Pilkington, E. (2012, July 13). Felon voting laws to disenfranchise historic number of Americans in 2012. The Guardian.

State of Utah. (2014, December 6). Election Day Requirements. Retrieved from Vote.Utah.Gov: vote.utah.gov/vote/menu/requirements.html

U.S. Const. amend. XIV. (n.d.).

U.S. Const. amend. XV. (n.d.).

U.S. Const. amend. XXIV. (n.d.).

Voting Rights Act of 1965. (2006). 42 U.S.C. § 1973.

Wrathall, J., Day, J., Ferguson, M., Hernandez, A., Ainscough, A., Steadman, K., . . . Tolman, A. (2013). Comprehensive Report on Homelessness. Salt Lake City: State of Utah.