For myself, I wanted to create a place on my own that I thought would be good as an opportunity for the homeless. Though I can’t currently create, design, build, and then run a homeless living place I think that overall creating one that would be a good option if it were built would be a great start to a potentially really good project for Eugene or Portland to put intact.
Living in Portland and now going to school in Eugene I have always been able to see the homeless in both cities. Portland has many different opportunities for the homeless, shelters and different areas of town have made their lives slowly better. An individual who owned an empty piece of property even let some of the homeless live on the land for free, covering the sides with fencing and making it semi private. In Eugene I find that the homeless are much more publicly populated areas such as around the Saturday Market.
Seeing the social controversy that exists over this issue I find myself torn on which side I stand. One side thinks the homeless have put themselves in this situation and that increasing tax dollars so they can live off of public money isn’t something that we should be voting for. The other side sees the homeless that are mentally ill, injured or put out of work and can’t get another job and they need help getting back on their feet. I think that there needs to be a middle situation. I wanted to create an opportunity for homeless people to live somewhere that is affordable and safe as well as off the streets. I’d like to structure an environment to help those in need.
Using a floor plan/ blueprint maker online I created what I thought would be a good way to design a place for people to live. I found that in order to use space efficiently I would need to put 2-3 people in each bedroom as well as making the bathrooms simple and easily used. The floors are all cement and people that lived there would have in-house jobs in order to keep it clean and reduce the live in price to the least possible. I’d create a non-profit funded by donations to insure that the controversy over it wouldn’t happen making it so only people who have the want to help the homeless are involved in the project. My hope would be that if this worked the homeless then willing to work and participate in the community they live in, would then have a safe place to live. We’d provide the ability to keep clean, get a job, and have a second chance at life.
There are huge amounts of psychological factors and issues that can force people int homelessness. Along with this homelessness can also be the cause of psychological issues. It can be easily looked at as a psychological trauma. Several causes of this trauma can be: The loss of one’s home can be a stressor of sufficient severity enough to cause trauma. The conditions of shelter life may produce trauma symptoms. Many homeless people, particularly women, become homeless after experiencing physical and sexual abuse which ends up causing trauma on its own on top of being homeless. Often people on the streets have mental handicaps, physical handicaps or drug abuse issues. All three of these are very common factors of homeless people and all of them are hard to deal with as an individual person. The homeless don’t get the help they need because of a lack of support facilities in most cities. There are places starting to help these people and I hope to see them continue to grow.
I started to really think about this personally when I saw a video on Reddit of a homeless man who was secretly video taped. The storyline is such that follows: The man was given $10 by a “passerby” (who was part of the plan) and was unbelievably grateful, hugged the man who gave it to him and was so happy for it. A couple minutes later a boy walks by and asks if he has any change to spare because he left his wallet at home and is thirsty. The homeless man who has nothing but the clothes on his back and a few small blankets hands him the $10 bill without even thinking about it. At this point the guy filming, the boy who asked for change, as well as the guy who gave the homeless person the $10 all go to sit with the homeless man. They then explain that they were filming him to see what he would do when asked for money as well as giving him back the $10 and buying him a McDonalds meal.
This really hit a soft spot for me. The fact that a person who has absolutely nothing is willing to give up enough money that would get him a full meal which he probably hasn’t had in a long time is heart warming and shows that there are people who are good people that are homeless. There are clearly dangerous people living on the streets but most have come there our of some type of tragedy and simply need our help.
http://psychologybenefits.org/2013/11/18/psychological-interventions-for-people-who-are-homeless/