5. Shipping Containers Become Apartments

In Orange County California, an organization is taking shipping containers and turning them into apartments. 

They aren't ugly, they aren't small (three shipping containers per person) and the apartments are for homeless vets.  Each vet pays 30 percent of their income, whatever it is, and they get a social worker to help them with resources.

To find out more, check out this article.

4. Be Respectful

Once upon a time was a guy named Abraham Maslow.  He was an early psychologist and he sat down and asked himself, “What does everyone, without exception, need?”

At first he came up with the list most of us would come up with: food, clothing, sleep, health.

Then he thought about it some more and realized that we need things that aren’t just survival.  He realized that we all needed to be secure, on some level.  We all needed a community to belong to.  And we all needed to be respected.

And it’s really true.  If we aren’t respected, then our ability to be social becomes dysfunctional.  We can’t trust anyone, and we treat everyone as if they were about to punch us.  We might become irrationally angry or even violent.   Without respect, frankly, we become people who find it difficult to deserve respect. 

The funny thing, is that folks on the street often find it difficult to obtain respect from people who serve them.

They will go to a meal and find people to be surely or rude or commanding.  They will meet outreach workers who treat them like children.  They run across individuals who make big promises, but don’t follow up.  They meet religious people who sincerely want to help them, but only if they agree with their specific religious views. 

This is so common that a couple of the folks who used our services and were welcomed at our day shelter said to me, “You know what I love about this place?  Here you really get treated respectfully.  People really want to know you and help you.  Other places aren’t like that.”  I was surprised, because it was always a first goal of mine to treat homeless folks like equal human beings to myself.

I guess I’m saying that it’s easy to get caught up in the work of serving without realizing that we are serving human beings.  We are serving people who lack, among other things, the basic dignity of equality.  When we offer what we plan to offer—a bowl of soup, a pair of socks, an opportunity for change—let’s also give some esteem.  Let’s be polite.  Let’s be loving.  Most of all, let’s give respect.

3. Care Kits

Often people don't know what to give homeless folks.  Many organizations have come up with the idea of collecting items most needed by the homeless into a bag and then handing it out to them.

The problem with this, mentioned in the last post, is that some items aren't as necessary as others.  A person only needs one toothbrush at a time, only one bar of soap.

On the other hand, there are items that folks on the street always need, and will always find helpful.  The best list of items for a care kit I found at the website of Portland Rescue Mission.

They say that water, snacks, socks, some cleaning items (like baby wipes), a list of local resources are good items to have in one's kit.

And they add that a word of encouragement is always helpful to go along with the kit.  Good point, guys!

Read more about their ideas here.

Also, if you really want to explore a broad range of items you might put in a bag, place in your car and give to folks on the street, check out Pintrest. 

2. Ask a Homeless Person

Often the most obvious is what we never think of.  If we want to help a homeless person, then perhaps the homeless is the first place to start.

Like I said before, there are approximately three and a half million homeless folks in the US alone.  And apart from a couple generalities, we can’t clump them into one group.  Everyone has their own personal stories, everyone has their own quirks, their own hang ups, their own talents. This means that we will have to figure out a unique way to help every individual. 

I like to give out breakfast bars to the folks begging.  But then I noticed that a number of folks don’t have teeth, which limits their ability to eat some of the bars I was handing out.  In winter, hand warmers are almost always welcome, but some folks looked at them and said, “I can’t really use these”, but some of those same people really needed tarps.  Lots of people love to put together hygiene bags, but I’ve seen homeless folks pull out the two items out of ten that they actually needed and then toss the rest.

In the end, cookie-cutter ways of helping only occasionally help.  If we are really going to help, we need to be specific and ask.  If we are helping an individual, instead of throwing at them what we assume they will need, let’s take the time and figure it out.  If we are serving food to a group, let’s ask them what they’d like to eat.  If we are a non-profit or government organization that is helping a community of the homeless, do a survey first to find out what they really need.  If you want to get homeless folks off the street, ask them what they want their future to be (perhaps a large segment of your population can’t go into apartments, for instance, for mental-health reasons).

Homeless folks, almost without exception, are nice to people who are nice to them.  So let’s be nice and respectful and ask them how we can help them!

***

Please remember to send me your ideas about helping the homeless!  You can send them to stevekimes@aol.com, or look me up on Facebook.  I'm Steve Kimes in Portland, Oregon!

Bicycle Trailer Home

Sarah Cloutier came up with a design to allow a house be trailed behind a bicycle.  A person's possessions can all fit in the trailer, and it can be slept in at night.  It was designed so as to be legally parked on a city street.

Read more about it here. 

Also, check out Sarah's blog of ideas to help the homeless, Bootstrap Homes!

1. A Million, Really?

Well, I don’t know that I can personally come up with a million ways to help any group. I do know this: that millions of people have been helped on the street.  And that there are as many creative ways to help those in need as there are people in need.  And since every year there are approximately 3.5 million people living on the street in the U.S., then perhaps a million ways to help folks in need isn’t so far-fetched.

Actually, if we collected all the ideas that are out there to help people who are desperate, maybe we really can come up with a million.  It’s a goal.

Everyone need a goal, right?

There are three important principles we need to realize in starting this project:

1.       Be creative

If we are going to have a million workable, possible ideas that really help people, then we will have to put our thinking caps on.  Let’s not limit ourselves to what is possible.  Okay, so I may not have a few million dollars to create the campground where RVs, tents and tiny homes can rest, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream?  Let’s think big, think small, think weird, think openly, think on a limited budget… whatever it takes.  Some of this will stick, eh?

2.       Be practical

There are a million ways to NOT help people, too.  “Put them all in jail” isn’t helpful.  Frankly, that’s bigoted and just nasty.  At the same time, “get all homeless folks three hundred dollar sleeping bags” not only is expensive, but might not actually be helpful (as the expensive sleeping bags might be stolen immediately).  Let’s consider things that will really help.

3.       Be active

Let’s not just come up with ideas that help the homeless, put them on the internet and figure that’s enough.  We need to put feet to those creative brains and be active.  If we think on it, let’s do it!  Or, at least, let’s do something.  This isn’t a brain trust so much as stepping stone to action.

If you have any good ideas you want to put on this blog, please contact me at stevekimes@aol.com and we’ll get some ideas out there!  Send me both your creative ideas, or ideas you see in the news or that other people have done.  Thanks!