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What You Can Do
While the causes of homelessness are complex, there is much an individual
can do to help. No matter what your skills, interests, or resources, there
are ways you can make a difference for some of the men, women, and children
who are homeless.
Volunteer work, advocacy efforts, and contributions of money, clothes,
food, and services are all important and needed. Listed below are many
suggestions.
Volunteer Activities
Working directly with homeless people is one of the best ways to learn
about homelessness.
There is a lot of "behind the scenes" work (filing, sorting
clothes, cutting vegetables, etc.) to be done at shelters and other service
agencies. Think about what you do best and the kind of setting in which
you work well: with individuals or groups, with men, women, or children.
Then call a few places, ask what help they need, and arrange for a visit.
You can find a partial listing of service providers on NCH's Online Directory
of Local Homeless Service Organizations, or through NCH's Online Directory
of Homeless & Housing Advocacy Coalitions.
Be patient - most programs are underfunded and understaffed. Staff are
often overwhelmed with trying to meet people's basic needs or coping with
emergencies. Let them know how you can help, when, and for how long. Don't
commit to more than one visit or task until you're sure this is the place
for you. Possible tasks include:
* Work at a shelter: perhaps an evening or overnight shift. Help with
clerical work: answer phones, type, file, sort mail. Serve food, wash
dishes, sort or distribute clothes.
* Help build or fix up houses or shelters: check with your local public
housing authority or Habitat for Humanity (their national number is 1-800-422-4828).
* Offer your professional skills and services directly or to assist in
job training: many services and skills are needed, including secretarial,
catering, plumbing, accounting, management, carpentry, tutoring, public
relations, fundraising, legal, medical, dentistry, writing, child care,
counseling, etc.
* Share your hobbies: teach a group, or work one-to-one with a homeless
person.
* Help children: work with program directors who are coordinating field
trips, picnics or art workshops for homeless children.
* Involve others: convince your classmates, co-workers, church mem or
civic club to join, or support, your efforts.
Contributions
While the concern and support demonstrated by volunteer work are essential,
material help is a necessity too. The end to homelessness is a long road;
in the meantime, homeless people and those running programs need help
every day. Needed items include:
* Clothing: The lack of clean, well-fitting clothes and shoes causes great
hardship beyond exposure to the elements; it hurts one's self-image and
one's chance to get ahead. No matter how many clothes homeless people
used to have, they must travel light, with few opportunities to safely
store, or adequately clean, what they can't carry. On job interviews,
a poorly dressed person has little chance for success. Give your unused
clothes to those who need them. Before you give your own clothes or start
a clothing drive, talk to your local shelter: find out what items they
really need. Most have limited storage space, and can't use winter clothes
in summer or vice versa. Some serve only a certain group of people. Please
clean the clothes before you donate them.
* Contribute in-kind services and materials: copying, printing, food,
transportation, marketing assistance, computer equipment and assistance,
electrical work, building materials, plumbing, etc.
* Donate household goods or other items: kitchen utensils, furniture,
books, etc. Toys, games, stuffed animals, dolls, and diapers are also
in high demand.
* Support a homeless person or family: as they move out of a shelter or
transitional housing program, assist by contributing household goods,
babysitting, moral support.
* Raise funds for a program: ask your group to abstain from one meal and
donate the proceeds to a shelter or soup kitchen. Organize a bike or walk-a-thon,
or a yard sale and donate the proceeds. Sponsor a benefit concert featuring
local musicians (and include homeless musicians on the program).
* Give directly: carry fast-food certificates, change, extra sandwiches,
or fruit to give to homeless people.
* Organize "survival kits" to give out to homeless people, with
items like cups, pot, pan, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, cosmetics.
(Try coordinating this through a group that gives out meals from a van,
for example). During cold weather organize drives for blankets, coats,
hats, scarves, mittens and socks.
* Help homeless people contact loved ones: give them the opportunity to
make free, long distance calls on special days.
* Encourage your company to hire homeless people: most homeless adults
desperately want to work, but need an employer to give them a chance.
* Raise money for security deposits, to help families meet the first month's
rent.
Advocacy
Advocacy is critical to ending homelessness. Advocacy means working with
homeless people to bring about positive changes in policies and programs
on the local, state, and federal levels. It means working with various
sectors of the community, e.g. city/county officials, Members of Congress,
direct service providers, and memof the private sector, to develop workable
strategies. Here are some ways you might help:
* Respond to NCH's Legislative Alerts. These alerts give the most up-to-date
information about what is happening in Congress affecting homelessness,
and what you can do about it.
* Register homeless people to vote (see NCH's Voting Rights Project for
more information).
* Volunteer at your local, state, or national housing or homeless advocacy
coalition. See NCH's Directory of Homeless & Housing Advocacy Coalitions
for the name of the coalition nearest you. If you can't volunteer, send
a donation.
* Attend neighborhood and public meetings and speak up in favor of low-income
housing, group homes, shelters, and homelessness prevention programs.
* Organize site visits to homeless programs with political leaders and
the media to highlight ways that your community is successfully addressing
the many problems associated with homelessness.
* Call or write the media to inform them of your concern for homeless
people in your area.
* Encourage homeless people, agency volunteers, and staff to write government
officials, asking them to give the issue of homelessness top priority
and to find humane solutions to the problem. Use opportunities like special
holiday meals to do this; provide paper, pens, stamped envelopes, and
sample messages at every meeting and event.
* Have a "Call In Day". Try getting a few people with mobile
phones and go to shelters and meal programs to get homeless people, volunteers
and staff to call the Governor (Mayor, Council mem..) to stop future cuts
in essential services. Or create a "reverse panhandling" activity:
get homeless people and other volunteers to hand out quarters and ask
people to call their legislators.
* Write letters to or call public officials at the city, county, state
and federal levels asking what they are doing about homelessness. Mention
relevant legislation. When legislators receive more than a few visits
or letters about any subject, they sit up and take note. Personal visits
are the most potent; letters and phone calls are next. Tell them your
feelings and experiences. Addresses for public officials are available
at the local library. For more information about communicating with Congress,
see NCH's Advocacy Guide.
Letters
to Members of Congress may be addressed as follows:
To a Senator:
The Honorable (Firstname Lastname)
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
To a Representative:
The Honorable (Firstname Lastname)
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
To call anyone in Congress: Capitol Switchboard 202.224.3121
Educate Yourself, Your Children, and Your Communities:
NCH maintains updated facts sheets on many aspects of homelessness, including
causes, numbers, and special issues. Please read them to familiarize yourself
with the latest information, and share them with your community: your
place of worship, school, colleagues, friends, and neighbors.
Listed below are the names of some of the many books about homelessness.
More information about these books can be found in our online library.
See our list of videos for additional educational materials.
Homelessness
in America, Jim Baumhol, 1996, Oryx Press. Available through NCH at 202.737.6444.
The
Visible Poor: Homelessness in the United States, Joel Blau, 1992, Oxford
University Press.
Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America, Jonathan Kozol,
1988, Random House.
Tell
Them Who I Am, Elliott Liebow, 1993, The Free Press-a division of Macmillan,
Inc.
A Far Cry From Home: Life in a Shelter for Homeless Women, Lisa Ferrell,
Noble Press, 1991.
American Homelessness, 2nd Edition, Mary Ellen Hombs, 1994, ABC-CLIO,
Inc., 800/422-2546.
No
Place To Be: Voices of Homeless Children, Judith Berck, foreward by Robert
Coles, 1992,Houghton Mifflin.
For Children:
Please review these first to make sure they're appropriate for your child.
Cave
under the City, Harry Mazer, 1986, HarperCollins.
Changing
Places: A Kid's View of Shelter Living, Margie Chalofsky, et al., 1992,
Gryphon House.
December
Stillness, Mary Downing Hahn, 1988, Avon Books.
Fly
Away Home, Eve Bunting, 1991, Houghton Mifflin Company.
The
Homeless Hibernating Bear, by Kids Livin' Life, 1993, Gold Leaf Press,
800/748-4900.
I
Want to Go Home, Elena Morrice and Lesley Koplow, 1988, The Center for
PreventivePsychiatry,
White Plains Clinic, 19 Greenridge Ave., White Plains, NY 10605.
Mandy's
House: The Story of a Homeless Family Who Finds a New Place to Live, Ruth
Spangler,1990, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, 1015-C S. Preston St.,
Louisville, KY 40203.
Mr.
Bow Tie, Karen Barbour, 1991, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Uncle
Willie and the Soup Kitchen, Dyanne Disalvo-Ryan, 1990, Morrow and Company
Inc.
We
Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy, Maurice Sendak, 1993, HarperCollins.
What About Panhandling?
Many people write NCH to ask for advice about what to do when they encounter
a homeless person asking for money.
The
decision about whether or not to give money is an individual, personal
decision. However, many people on the street -- those who are asking for
money and those who are not -- are often passed by countless times as
though they did not exist. Acknowledging a person's existence by looking
at them is one of the most important ways to reaffirm his or her humanity
at a time when homelessness seems to have stripped it away. Thus, whether
or not you choose to give money, please don't look away as if the person
doesn't exist.
Panhandling:
A Little Understanding, an article reprinted from San Francisco's Street
Sheet, provides some insight into panhandling and homelessness.
Last
updated - February 1999 - National Coalition for the Homeless
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