nonprofit
Wikipedia Founder Creates Site for Homeless
Published November 21, 2009 @ 01:51PM PT
The Wikipedia model isn't just for pop culture research anymore. Wikis for homeless services information are popping up from coast to coast, proving that when web innovators apply their theories and skills to ease the delivery of social services, everybody wins.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was recently in Tampa Bay to launch TampaBayHomeless.wikia.com, a site that aims to serve as online "hub" for homeless services in the city. The city isn't the first to have such a site, similar wikis are already being used in larger cities, like New York and LA.
The site - Tampa Bay Homeless - is rooted in the Wikipedia theory of collaboration. The design is user-friendly and easy to navigate, making it easy to find needed information. Information is organized by needs - such as shelter, legal services, food, veterans, etc. - and allows anyone to log-in and edit information. The collaborative model allows shelters to easily update ever-changing information about their shelters, allowing those in need of services to rest assured that the information they need is current.
Part of the reason the idea of a Homeless Wiki is so exciting is it will allow for user feedback. I can envision shelter reviews, personal testimonies that expose snags in the system, information from the streets to aid outreach workers. The concept of service providers and recipients collaborating online is exciting, because it has the potential to ultimately improve the delivery of services.
Collaboration can be tough to accomplish in homeless services. But perhaps wikis are just the thing to provide streamlined services and information to those who need them. It's encouraging to see trailblazing web innovators like Wales applying their concepts to the delivery of social services. Anything to make the "user experience" more streamlined and information more accessible is a win-win for everyone.
How to Streamline the Safety Net?
Published November 17, 2009 @ 12:52PM PT
We hear it all the time: the social service safety net is convoluted, confusing, and tough to navigate. It's hard to know where to go to find services. Government applications, housing applications, and program requirements are enough to make a person's head spin. But can good marketing - making information more readily available to those who need it - ease the journey through social services?
David Henderson of InforUm wrote a thoughtful post today that raised this very question: what good are social services if nobody knows about them? He writes, "Part of program effectiveness is marketing our services to those who need them most, and making it as easy for people to receive social services as it is to buy books on Amazon.com."
He raises a good point point. Many homeless service providers would appear to be stuck in the dark ages of marketing; a shelter will often pat itself on the back for developing a tri-fold flyer. And who can blame them? Often short-staffed and under-funded, many service providers must carefully maintain a "we've got it together" image while still appearing needy enough to solicit donations. It's a fine line to walk. Besides, service providers aren't a business; there's a limit to the number of clients that can be served, and these days, this number is often maxed out.
Navigating the Social Service Safety Net
Published November 16, 2009 @ 02:28PM PT
Jay's story might sound familiar to you. His unfortunate situation is not uncommon these days. He lost his job, then his home to foreclosure, and ended up homeless on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio.
Jay talks about his frustration trying to get help from homeless service providers. Since services have become specialized, he must travel to multiple agencies to get all of the help he needs. But without reliable transportation, he has trouble getting around. Although there are many good things to be said about the Continuum of Care model, it is not perfect. It does not, for example, fill in all of the communication gaps or take into consideration the lack of access to reliable and easily accessible transportation.
Imagine for a moment that you are homeless without income. You panhandle for bus fare, then travel to the agency you believe is most likely to help. You fill out the paperwork and sit in the lobby all day. After hours of waiting you are told you don't qualify, or the program is full and your name will go on a waiting list. If you're lucky, you'll get a bus pass to get home. Either way, at the end of the day, you're still homeless without housing or food. And you have to repeat this process - over and over - until you find the help you need.
Of course, this is a worse case scenario. It's important to remember the many instances when the safety net works, when it saves people from the streets.
Still, in some cases - like Jay's - people just give up. Perhaps his story will help you understand why.
Jay from InvisiblePeople.tv on Vimeo.
You Are Not Where You Live
Published October 29, 2009 @ 07:52PM PT
You are not where you live.
This is the painfully-simple-but-so-important message writer Becky Blanton shared during a presentation for TED, an organization that shares "riveting talks by incredible people." Blanton began living in her van by choice. But one year after she began her adventure, she was broke, had fallen into the depths of depression, and felt homeless.
In the short video below, she talks about what she learned during just one year living in a van. She makes painfully important observations about homelessness, from the outside and the inside. Including three key lessons:
1. Society equates living in a permanent structure with our value.
2. The negative perceptions of others can easily impact our self-worth, if we allow it to.
3. Homelessness is an attitude, not a lifestyle.
Although I wouldn't classify Blanton as "homeless", I still found her testimony deeply moving. Partially because Blanton is such a riveting storyteller, but also because you can sense how deeply the experience impacted her.
Blanton had her identity as a writer and plenty of opportunities awaiting her at the end of her year on the streets. Many others are not as lucky.
Image: topleftpixel
Parenting While Homeless
Published October 29, 2009 @ 08:20AM PT
It's the toughest job there is, being a parent. And it's a role that becomes exponentially more challenging when the safety of four walls and a roof are gone. How do homeless parents help their family survive? How do they provide for their children amid such uncertainty?
Sadly, these are questions that far too many families are having to answer the hard way... by experiencing it.
The team over at the Homelessness Resource Center shared with me a the powerful essay of a woman named Gladys Fonfield-Ayinla who shares her experience as a single homeless mother. She talks about her downward spiral into homelessness, her regrets, the painful memories of entering shelter.
But Fonfield-Ayinla's essay is not just a memoir. She raises important concerns she had while parenting in a shelter environment; issues that should be required reading for every family shelter service provider. Her key concerns involved childcare choice, parenting in a house with other families (with their own beliefs, disciplinary styles, etc.), and the heavy-handed disciplinary approach that - while necessary in some cases - prevents individuals from speaking out for fear of losing their only shelter.
Whether you're a parent or not, this story will open your eyes. You will feel her pain. But more importantly, you will get a sense of the intrinsic challenges in meeting the needs of homeless families through a traditional shelter system.
The Business of Putting Yourself Out of Business
Published October 22, 2009 @ 09:12AM PT
Those who work in the field of homelessness seem to lack any good business sense. They are working in not-very-profitable, burnout-inducing careers that exist solely with the goal of putting themselves out of business. It's an odd question; we know that unemployment often leads to homelessness, so why set out a career with the goal of ending it?
This is a question that I - and perhaps many others - have long struggled to answer. There's something cruel and ironic about working with the poorest of the poor while earning a salary. To take advantage of health and dental benefits while others cannot access life-saving medication. To go out to dinner and choose from a menu of items while others must take what they're given from a soup kitchen.
How do we reconcile these issues in our minds? How do we truly work as good advocates when there is financial security to be had from serving others?
Certainly, there is not an expectation that all who serve the poor and homeless live like Mother Teresa (although, I would not mind living in that world). But revisiting these tough questions should compel us to re-evaluate our priorities, our lifestyle, and our motivation for doing this work. Perhaps we will never find answers to these tough questions, but I don't think it ever hurts to take a good hard look at your motivation for entering this field.
Being an effective homeless activist or service provider will not happen if we continually expound self-congratulatory verbiage or holier-than-thou attitudes about doing the work that we do. Rather, we must humbly acknowledge that this issue is much larger than any one person. Our daily interaction with issues of poverty and housing and mental health should open our eyes to a host of other issues that are all inter-connected. Most important, we must recognize that our ability to make an impact on these issues in our lifetime is directly correlated to our ability to work in tandem with others to bridge the socio-economic gap that has perpetuated homelessness in our society.
That said, if given the opportunity to eradicate poverty and homelessness tomorrow, would you take it?
Image: reinvented
Environmental Audit for Homeless Charities
Published October 15, 2009 @ 07:18AM PT
There are many ways a non-profit organization can decrease its expenses and increase its efficiency that helps both the homeless and the environment. Being more environmentally friendly can also fit with the need to be more cost-effective and more efficient. It's just another framework from which to look at your mission of helping the homeless.
Realistically, my heart is only big enough for issues that face the homeless. I know I'm supposed to be passionate about things like climate change and animal rights . But, to be perfectly honest, I only pretended to care about these things when I was dating a really gorgeous girl who was into all that stuff.
If you work in the homeless sector like me, you would have made decisions that were bad for the environment simply because your focus is on your homeless clients and nothing will stand in your way. I've always been one eyed and aggressive in that regard; I care so much about the homeless people I serve that I don't care how many trees have to be cut down or cute little baby lambs must be butchered.
When it comes to environmental issues, usually the reality for me is cost. If someone mentions a more environmentally friendly way of doing what we do, I always ask ‘so what is that going to cost me?' If not; it's about efficiency and I ask ‘how will that different way of doing things affect our efficiency?'
All charities no matter the area of focus have a starving hunger for the most cost effective and efficient way of doing things. Rarely do considerations about the impact on the environment ever come into serious consideration.
One way I've found that decreased expenses substantially and improved efficiency was to change our paper based management to a website management model. Everything I would have printed out and stood in front of the photo copier for hours preparing is now done online at negligible expense and with greater efficiency.
If you are still using a photocopier, a binding machine, or anything to do with paper (including contracting a printing company), then your whole office needs an environmental audit, and an efficiency audit for that matter also. So much can be done online these days.
I'm old fashioned in many ways, hard-headed and stubborn. But moving a lot of organizational management activites online has saved our non-profit a pretty penny.
Review how your internal reporting is done, how your training materials are made available, how your rosters are distributed, what else? What can you do online? I use to spend thousands of dollars on paper based communication, now I do it online for a very small fraction of the cost.
Today is Blog Action Day, a time when the world focuses on Climate Change. There are already over 7,000 blogs involved with a readership of over 12 million people. The campaign is focused on today, the 15th of October. If you have a blog, please post about Climate Change today, and if you miss the date, please post about it anyway. It's about the conversation, not the date.
