Many people do not realize there are huge informal networks out there the homeless rely on to survive, find resources, and get through the day – and the night in some cases. Although there are agencies and government offices charged with helping the unhoused, a lot of the services come from citizens who have taken to the streets to help – this help includes food, cash, aspirin, cellphone minutes, and other essentials for the homeless.
Some of us are mentors in the community. We have diverse training and experiences, and we help especially new people who are out on the streets meeting people without a roof and providing them with things they need – from water bottles to moral support.
Mentoring is important in business and other communities. There are a wide range of benefits to come from mentoring in general—not just helping the “mentee” learn essential knowledge and skills for application (https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/why-is-a-mentor-important).
My background is education. I know other mentors who are social workers, moms, grandparents, business owners, finance majors, and writers. We all have an important – but sometimes informal -- role to help train and inform the people who are out there helping the homeless. There are university professors, government employees, retired teachers, police officers, and others in our network also.
A difficult concept for some people to grasp is that this informal help comes from the streets and moves outward – it does not come out of agencies or offices and into the street. Some people simply do not understand why this is important. What is needed is input from the homeless to find out what they want and need. This goes against models in which somebody in an office makes a decision how to help and then sends out goods, services, and support that are not needed. The homeless face a violent and foreboding environment indeed in which they try to survive.
An expert writing for the National Coalition for the Homeless has stated, “I have interviewed so many unhoused people who have found the violence, victimization and exploitation of homelessness to be overwhelming” (https://nationalhomeless.org/grassroots-organizing-to-end-homelessness/). Brian Davis tells of the importance of grassroots organizing to help the homeless, consider their input, and understand the needs and thoughts of those without a roof. He tells of the terribly militaristic approaches used in the homeless shelters in this country and how many homeless people do not want to give up their freedom to go to a place where people do not help them, there are strict rules, and where comfort is not stressed. He explains that this unwelcoming shelter is at the core of services provided to the homeless. He goes on to say, “We have created a mental health-drug treatment system disguised as a homeless system.”
How do we as advocates and educators help the homeless—and those who would like to help them? In what ways can we broaden people’s understanding of the homeless experience? In what ways do we teach students to better understand the homeless? In what ways do we serve as a resource as the students go out to provide services and relief to those who dwell in a different kind of house?
As educators and advocates, we help college students, community members, and church-goers help the homeless. We inform them, train them, challenge them, assist them. But how can we as guides for these helpers meet the great challenges of teaching about the homeless? Where do we draw our ideas from? Where do we find the patience we need to educate and advocate?
One graduate student who was looking for people from that different kind of house to interview for a class project once told me, “some homeless people just look homeless.” The student insisted it was usually rather easy to find somebody to interview. “Look for the bags and the carts,” the student told me. “They are dead giveaways!”
One huge challenge in our work is that many helpers – like most people -- assume all homeless people are the same. Many people assume all homeless people have some key defect to them, some disability, or some missing link to society. As advocates and educators, we know these are unfortunate myths that help nobody.
This one-dimensional view of the homeless as all being the same – and all being flawed people -- works against those of us who are trying to help. Not all homeless people face the challenges of addiction or of mental illness. Some do. Not all face the great mistake they made once in their lives. But some do. Treating all people as individuals is a huge step in the right direction if we are trying to help.
There are many different kinds of unhoused persons and it is important to understand this. There are many reasons people are homeless—and taking this knowledge in stride is essential if helpers are going to move beyond the confusion of why some people are unhoused and move forward to actually helping them (https://nationalhomeless.org/about-homelessness/).
There are in fact many people who want to help the homeless… but how? How can helpers recognize their own feelings of stigma and ignorance about the homeless? We need to recognize these problems in context. In America, we have some strong hang-ups about people who dwell outdoors – or at least do not dwell indoors the way most people have been taught they should: “As a society, we have a stereotypical view of homeless people…” (https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/education-outreach/beyond-stigma-and-stereotypes-what-is-homelessness.pdf). Educating others about their homeless brothers and sisters can take some work each day.
One of the biggest problems is the huge stigma attached to the homeless. Some people simply avoid the homeless because of their notions of what “all homeless” people are like. They may provide them with flyers or coins or sandwiches—but never invite the homeless into their apartment or place of work. Some helpers do not want the homeless “too close” to their refuge. They want to help, but they want their privacy. Where does this this fear of the homeless come from?
Dr. Romeo Vitelli has studied issues surrounding homelessness – including the huge stigma faced by persons “without a roof.” He mentions, “While research has long demonstrated the medical and psychological consequences of being chronically or temporarily homeless, one problem rarely coming to light is the terrible stigma surrounding homelessness” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/media-spotlight/202106/why-is-homelessness-so-stigmatized). Unfortunately, this stigma is a huge stumbling block for advocates focused on helping the homeless and in getting them homes. Vitelli goes on to say, “Often driven by a "not in my backyard" mentality, this stigma has inspired numerous anti-homeless laws in many jurisdictions worldwide.”
Dr. Nathan Kim of University of California San Francisco in his research has discovered people hold onto a lot of myths about the homeless indeed. Many people think homeless persons are deviant or flawed, many are sexual predators, and many are even happy to be “at the bottom of the heap” (https://psycnet.apa.org/buy/2021-39991-001). He has learned that many people think the homeless even “deserve” to be in their bad situation.
Some people really do want to serve as helpers, and they do so by trying to find resources and even giving of their own food and money. But they don’t want to hug them, and now with the virus out there, some people even think the homeless have a very high rate of positive test results just because the homeless are outdoors a lot, in contact with lots of people, or hang out with people who do not take precautions, like wearing masks.
Some “helpers” don’t want to get too close physically either—don’t want to get any diseases or bugs. The helpers assume all homeless are the same, and they harbor feelings of the huge stigma—being homeless is an evil thing. As with helping all disadvantaged persons, the helpers have to become more comfortable talking to, touching, and relating to the homeless. Otherwise, this “professional distance” stands in the way, literally, of getting the homeless persons to admit their needs and seek help.
Another problem restraining helpers from doing good is the myth is that all homeless persons have committed some grave mistake. Perhaps that “assumed” grave mistake was assault or murder or stalking or fighting. As mentioned briefly above, people often think there is some “great mistake” at play in the past of some homeless people. It is felt by lots of citizens out there that the homeless persons have probably committed a serious crime, or in some way acted in a way which has caused their own current challenges. Sometimes people feel the crime or error is so serious there is no hope for the homeless person. Some homeless persons themselves may feel this… some crime is lurking in their past.
This crime in the past--like a haunting family secret in a tragic story—can never be overcome for some and it will continue to destroy the life of the homeless person (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/07/the-big-stigma-is-its-the-homeless-persons-fault). This sort of myth is damaging because it keeps that person away from living life to its fullest—which means different things to different people.
Abandoning stereotypes about how people are supposed to live is as important as helping homeless people to overcome their challenges, recover from the stress and exhaustion of their time dealing with difficulties, and rekindle a sense of worth. To help the homeless with their journey, I suggest helpers get to know them as individuals, assist them in setting reasonable goals, and value them as citizens who are part of our community.
As educators, we are faced with teaching the helpers how to overcome their fears and shuck off the feelings of stigma and nonsense associated with the homeless. That past crime—and the little bugs—are sometimes present, true. And those things contribute to the terrible experience we call “homelessness.” However, looking beyond those realities means a helper is able to do some good and provide some answers and relief to the homeless.
As educators, we need to break down the walls we ourselves build against others. We need to study the homeless experience, observe it, and feel it. We cannot judge if we are not on the same rescue team, actively meeting the homeless out there – wherever they dwell. As an educator myself, I try not to judge but as I get older I wind up judging. “Darn it!” I say. “I am trying not to judge all these weird people who seem to be foolish!” [paraphrasing what I usually say so I won’t get in trouble.]
I asked a local professor charged with helping students working on a master’s degree in social work how those persons learned about those outdoor-dwellers. She responded, “They go out there and meet them and interview them wherever they are.” So then I asked, “Where are those homeless people?” And she answered, “Oh, I don’t know, but the students can always find them.” She joked that her students travel throughout the city, and that if the homeless are out there, “my ramblers can find them.”
Mentoring students does not just help the students. Many social work faculty members feel there are additional reasons to mentor: “For experienced social workers, mentorship is a way to give back and help new and mid-career social workers alike maintain the passion that initially attracted them to the field” (https://dworakpeck.usc.edu/news/the-value-of-networking-and-mentorship-within-social-work). Social workers remind us that theirs is a rigorous profession, and that it’s important for everyone in their community of learners to feel supported and united. It is important to keep “lifting one another up as they dedicate their own lives to improving” the lives of those in need—and this would seem to include the homeless.
True, it is not that hard to find homeless persons in Chicago. There are in fact thousands of homeless persons in the city (https://www.chicagohomeless.org/). They are everywhere. Some do “look homeless” (whatever that means)… and then there are the thousands who do not.
Thank goodness there are huge informal networks out there for the homeless to rely on to survive, find resources, and get through yet another day and night.
Solidifying, cataloguing, improving, and connecting the mentors and mentees are projects for future dates. However, they are projects we all need to consider getting involved in. As mentors, we need to help the helpers, the mentors, and the network.