Reply #13: HOW YOU CAN HELP END HOMELESSNESS [View All]

~Published by the National Coalition for the Homeless, 2001~

While the causes and solutions to homelessness are complex, there is much that an individual or community group can do to help. No matter what your skills, interests, age, 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, financial or material contributions, and continued self-education are all important and needed as we work our way to a solution. Some suggestions are listed below:

VOLUNTEER Volunteering your time to work directly with people experiencing homelessness is one of the best ways to learn about homelessness and help to meet immediate needs at the same time. There is a lot of "behind the scenes" work (filing, sorting clothes, cutting vegetables, etc.) to be done at shelters and other direct service agencies. Think about what you do best and the kind of setting in which you work most effectively–with individuals or groups, with men, women, or children, and so on. 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 Directory of Local Homeless Service Organizations (http://www.nationalhomeless.org/local/local.html).

~Be patient–many service providers are under-funded and understaffed. Staff members 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, and give them time to figure out how to work you in. Remember that service providers need help at all times of year–not just holidays–and will appreciate regular volunteers who can be counted on to show up. At the same time, don't commit to more than one visit or task until you're sure you have found a place to which you are able to make a long-term commitment.

~Work at a shelter. Take an evening or overnight shift. Help with clerical work such as answering phones, typing, filing, or sorting mail. Serve food, wash dishes, or sort and distribute clothes. Help build or fix up houses or shelters. Check with your local public housing authority, or find the nearest chapter of Habitat for Humanity by calling (800) 422-4828 or visiting (http://www.habitat.org).

~Offer professional skills directly or assist in job training. Direct service providers may be able to use many services and skills, including secretarial, catering, plumbing, accounting, management, carpentry, public relations, fundraising, legal, medical, dentistry, writing, child care, counseling, tutoring, or mentoring

~Share hobbies. Teach your hobbies to a group of people staying at a homeless shelter. Ask them about their hobbies and have them teach you. Invite people experiencing homelessness to a community event.

~Invite people who are experiencing homelessness to a worship service, public concert or picnic, city council meeting, etc. Organize an event at a shelter. Plan an evening program such as a board game or chess night, an open mike poetry reading, a guest storytelling or musical performance, or a holiday party.

~Write letters, call, or visit public officials at the city, county, state and federal levels asking what they are doing about homelessness and/or mentioning relevant legislation.

~To call anyone in Congress: Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121. Letters to Members of Congress may be addressed as follows: To a Senator: To a Representative: The Honorable (Firstname Lastname) The Honorable (Firstname Lastname) United States Senate U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20515

.~Have a "Call In Day." Try getting a few people with cellular phones to go to shelters or meal programs to get people experiencing homelessness, volunteers, and staff to call the Governor (Mayor, Council Member...) asking them to stop future cuts in essential services.

~Create a "reverse panhandling" activity–get people experiencing homelessness and other volunteers to hand out quarters and ask people to call their legislators.

~Register people experiencing homelessness to vote. The "You Don't Need A Home to Vote" nonpartisan voter registration/education/get-out-the-vote campaign occurs nationwide each election cycle. Find out how you can lobby for a homeless voting rights written policy or law in your state.

~Or visit http://www.pirg.org/nscahh/hhweek.html. Organize a "Faces of Homelessness" panel. Through NCH's "Faces of Homelessness" panel presentations, the voices and faces of those who have experienced homelessness personalize the issue, dispel stereotypes, inspire involvement, and serve as a training, skill building, and empowerment tool for those who have experienced homelessness.

~Join the National Homeless Civil Rights Organizing Project. NCH's National Homeless Civil Rights Organizing Project (NHCROP) is organized at the grassroots level with nine regional field sites throughout the country. NHCROP tracks the growing trend of criminalizing homelessness, along with the recent increase in the number of hate crimes and violence against people experiencing homelessness. Local homeless activists are working to stop this trend by using litigation, lobbying, community organizing, documentation, and research. To get in contact with your regional field site and/or to become a civil rights monitor in your area, contact Michael Stoops, (202) 737-6444 x19 or mstoops@nationalhomeless.org or visit
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/nhcrop.html.

~CONTRIBUTE While the concern and support demonstrated by volunteer work and advocacy are essential, material assistance is also a necessity. Escaping and ending homelessness is a long process. In the meantime, people experiencing homelessness and the programs that serve them need help every day. Needed items and services might 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. People experiencing homelessness 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 clean clothes to those who could use them. Before you give your own clothes or start a clothing drive, talk to your local shelter and 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. In-kind services and materials.

~Service providers may be able to use copying, printing, food, transportation, marketing assistance, computer equipment and assistance, electrical work, building materials, plumbing, etc. Household goods or other items. Service providers may need items such as kitchen utensils, furniture, books, toys, games, stuffed animals, dolls, diapers, etc.
Books.

~People experiencing homelessness may have limited access to a library and find that there is little for them to do when spending a night at a shelter. Find out if your local shelter would appreciate donations of books. Consider organizing a book drive to create a small library at the shelter if there is not already one there. Computers. Many non-profit organizations have a difficult time purchasing expensive but essential equipment such as computers. If you have a machine you no longer need, a local shelter or service provider might greatly appreciate the donation. Shelter guests might also appreciate the donation of machines for their use, although you should check if a shelter would have space to set up public computers.

~Homeless "survival kits." Create and distribute kits that include items such as cups, pots, pans, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and 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, socks, and the like.

~Help people experiencing homelessness contact loved ones by offering the opportunity to make free, long distance calls on holidays.

~Raise funds for a program. Ask your group to abstain from one meal and donate the proceeds to a shelter or soup kitchen. Sponsor a benefit concert or coffee house featuring local musicians and poets (Don't forget to include homeless and formerly homeless performers!).

~Organize a walk-a-thon or a yard sale and donate the proceeds

~Consider giving directly to people experiencing homelessness. Deciding whether or not to give to panhandlers is a personal decision. Some may not give money out of fear that it may be spent supporting an addiction. Although this is occasionally true, the money also may help someone buy a meal, afford housing, buy clothes, purchase an ID to stay in a shelter, pay for transportation to a job, childcare, healthcare, support a family member–the possibilities are numerous. In some cases, instead of giving money, people carry gift certificates to restaurants or granola bars, peanut butter crackers, sandwiches, or fruit to give to homeless people.

~Smile. Whether or not you choose to give change, please don't look away from homeless people as if they do not exist. Making eye contact, saying a few words, or smiling (provided that it is a situation in which you feel comfortable doing so) can reaffirm the humanity of a person at a time when homelessness seems to have stripped it away. Most people will be glad simply to be acknowledged


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