The title of this blog is "Week of Homelessness". I wanted to spend 7 days living on the streets of Oklahoma City to try and gain a better understanding of what our homeless neighbors experience every day. The truth is, I am not homeless. I cannot truly know what a homeless person experiences, because I have a home. I have a job. I have family and friends who love me who would help me if the bottom dropped out of my comfortable life. But part of the challenge of working with people who don't have a place to call home is trying to understand what they go through on a daily basis. To try to grasp what it is like to sleep under a bridge in the cold of winter; to rely on others for food and clean clothing; to experience the indignity of being treated as 'less than'. I think having empathy for people who are marginalized helps inform the decisions we make in developing programs and supports to help people get off the streets and into stable housing.
A few months ago, I started thinking about what I could do to gain a better understanding of the challenges faced by people who are homeless. It occurred to me that the best way to do this would be to spend some time on the streets with the people we serve. So, I am going to begin my week on the streets on Friday, November 21 and I will end my week on Thanksgiving Day. In addition to giving me some insight on what it means to be homeless, I hope to bring awareness to the issue of street homelessness in Oklahoma City. I have been hesitant to let people know about this endeavor, because again, I don't want this to be about me. This is about the people that experience homelessness everyday. I have decided to write this blog as I am able during the week to let people know about my experiences. I want to tell the stories of the people I meet so that others can also gain some understanding about the people living on the streets of our city.
In further thinking about this experience, I came up with some 'rules' about how this whole thing will work. The plan is that I will start the week on Friday afternoon at the downtown bus terminal. I will have only the clothes on my back and some incidentals. I am going to try to make it through the week without my ID, as this is a barrier that a lot of our folks face as they try to access services. The challenge will be finding those resources I will need to make it through the week. With little money in my pocket and no place to sleep, I hope to experience some of these challenges first hand. I will carry my smart phone with me for safety reasons, but I will try not to use it - another challenge faced by the folks we serve.
I also want to be clear that this is not an attempt to disparage any homeless service providers. I will be accessing services from providers to meet basic needs, primarily food. The goal is not to criticize services provided by these agencies. That is not productive and it is not the goal of this undertaking. After the week is over, if agencies would like to know about my experiences with their programs, I would be happy to share that information, but that is certainly not the focus of this venture. I will also make a donation to any agency from whom I receive services over the course of the week. Again, I don't want to utilize resources that are meant for people in need.
I will be keeping a journal and throughout the week, Be The Change staff, volunteers and board members will be meeting with me at designated times so that I can share my experiences. We hope to make some short videos and we will post videos and parts of the journal on our facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/be.thechange.31) and via email. I hope you follow along with us.
Ending this endeavor on Thanksgiving seems appropriate. As we take time to give thanks for what we have, we can remember those that struggle every day.
Much Love,
Jonathan
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