Is the American Dream alive and well? Empire State/Tenement Day 2.

I'm awake writing this in the dark before everyone gets up. Why not just turn on the lights Evan? you ask. Well, all 14 of us are sleeping in one room so I suppose I'm just trying to be polite. On Saturday of our service trip to NYC, we began the day by going to the Empire State Building. By our second day most of us had a good grasp on the Subway system so getting there was fairly easy-not me out course, directions are hard. We took an interesting audio tour of the place and actually chatted with one of the guards for a while on the 86th floor observatory deck. He was a character to say the least. He was definitely one of the more friendly people we've met on the trip so far, but he could've just be looking for more Instagram followers (rico_suavve_ if your little heart desires). 

The only other thing on our schedule for the day, we ended up going to Wall Street briefly, was the Tenement Museum. I didn't know what a tenement was going into the day, so this failed to spark my interest-until we actually started the tour. For those who may not know, a tenement is an apartment building. Not just any apartment building though (otherwise they'd just call it an apartment silly), a tenement is an apartment building that has very limited amenities in an effort to reduce cost for the landlord and to pack as many people into the building as possible. They had records of up to 12 people living in a 3 rooms apartment. These weren't real spacious rooms either. This kind of housing really served the immigrant population that was coming over primarily from Europe during the early 1900's. Throughout the early 1900's, the government began to mandate certain amenities that helped improved the living situation at the tenements some. The 1924 reform on immigration as well as new fire regulations in tenements ultimately made running them uneconomical as they were very expensive to get up to code and many were not at full capacity due to limitations on immigration. 

One thing I found very interesting was how this tenement situation tied into the American Dream. Some say that the American Dream is dead, I feel like the American Dream is still alive and well but the expectations are now more skewed and unrealistic. Movies like the Pursuit of Happyness glorify someone from poverty becoming very wealthy. These stories are great, but unrealistic in many situation. I feel like the American Dream has always been to provide a good living for your family, one that was better that your own, not a lavish lifestyle. A couple things that spurred this thinking in me was the fact that most families used the tenements as transitional housing with many staying only a year or two. This means that there were opportunities to a better life. The other thing that got my thinking about this was a fact that came up in both Erica and Kramer's presentations. The fact was the only 6% of people born in the lower quintile of income move up to the top quintile. I think that statistic plays to the Pursuit of Happyness Dream of becoming rich from nothing. I would be more interested in statistic to see how many people better themselves one or two quintiles to see if there are opportunities out there. This may shed some light as to whether the American Dream is still alive and well. I'm looking for mobility to a middle class more so than to an upper class in most cases. Do you think the American Dream has changed? How so? What kinds of opportunities allow people to move classes? Do we need more housing reform currently? 

We had a a lot of different memoriesonn this trip, but I think most people would say that the best part was the dinner at YSOP. We cooked dinner for a group of men from a shelter and I will remember the conversations we had for a long time to come. 

It can be difficult to talk to someone with a very different background than your own and I've always had trouble starting these conversations. This time was very different. Lion and Ken (names have been changed to protect the innocent) came up to a group of us who were making the salad dressing and started a conversation with us. They both talked about their hopes and dreams. Lion wants to be an artist and Ken wants to be a chef. Lion was very outgoing and Ken a little more reserved. Ken talked about how he used to work 60 hours weeks and about his passion for cooking. He seemed like a very driven guy which makes me wonder how he got to this place in his life. Of course I never asked but I was definitely curious. 

The next guy I talked to was Sam. I was told to talk to Sam by Kramer because he previously worked in commercial real estate and that is what I'm interested in doing. Sam seemed to by your average, talkative, Italian New Yorker. He was very passionate about commercial real estate and talked at length about the good old days of managing apartment buildings. Him and I hit it off right away and he showed me how he got all the real estate listing sent directly to him on his phone. He told me that he hadn't worked in 6 months but never really told my why. In discussing with other people after the group of men left, I found out that he had severe anxiety and depression that hindered his ability to work. It was crazy to see someone with his type of skills being homeless because it really drove in the fact that homelessness can really happen to anyone. 

The final guy I talked to was Mike. Mike was an elderly, African American man who had a raspy voice (from smoking I presume). He opened up to me the most out of everyone I talked to that night. He told me the story of how he first went to jail when he got busted the first time he ever sold cocaine. Mike was college educated and had a job out of college. He told me that he saw other guys on the street with really nice cars and compared it to the raggedy, beat up car he had. He was not content with the money he was making so he turned to selling drugs to get to the place he wanted to be. Mike was working in construction after getting out of jail and he fell off the second story of a building which led him to being disabled. You couldn't really tell because he was sitting down, but Mike had done a number to his back during the fall. I found Mike's scenario to be very interesting because it seemed like it was the only one of the four scenarios that seemed avoidable. With that being said, I'm glad he is getting the help he needs through the shelter and can get back up on his feet soon.

The night as a whole really engrained in me that homelessness can strike at any time and can affect all sorts of people. It definitely made me thankful for the opportunities I have by going to Drake and having a full time job that will support me when I get out. I think the night went about as well as it possibly could have and my only wish would be that we would've been able to stay and talk to them longer. Interacting with the homeless on an intimate level made a lot more sympathetic to homelessness as a whole-especially in NY. Many of the men worked and just simply could not afford the exorbitant prices of rent in the city. New York has a lot of resources for the homeless but I think it would be one of the hardest cities to get out of homelessness. I think the key is not necessarily to bring people out of homelessness but to not let them get there in the first place.

How has interacting with the homeless population changed your views on homelessness?  What things can we do as a society and an individual to stop the cycle of poverty or bring people out of it? Is jail a better option than being homeless?