Part of the Solution

Part of the Solution

On Monday, our team headed out to The Bronx and volunteered at Part of the Solution (POTS), which is an organization that offers just about every service imaginable for homeless and impoverished persons.  Our team members were split into different roles.  Some served food, others acted as servers for our guests, and one of our team members acted as a hostess to seat people as they came in.  POTS was impressive--the place is designed to feel like a real restaurant, which fosters an atmosphere of respect and dignity. POTS has a kitchen, legal clinic, health clinic, food pantry, barbershop, and various other services to aid a person to self-sufficiency.  This idea of self-sufficiency is one that I wrestled with throughout our trip.  Whenever homelessness makes its way into national conversation, we always talk about solutions to homelessness and how we can alleviate poverty.  Indeed, this is why the official absolute poverty line was established in the first place--we needed a metric to see how many people were moving out of poverty due to Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty."  There seems to be a stark contrast between conservative and liberal views of the homeless: on one end, the homeless are believed to be personally responsible and need to get a job to get back on their feet; on the other, homelessness is the fault of the society we live in and is unfairly structured to benefit those on top, who should pay a greater share in taxes to help the homeless.  The reality lies somewhere in the middle: indeed, we have a system in place that stacks the cards against the poor before they've even had a chance in life.  However, we also heard a theme of personal responsibility develop as we spoke to POTS and other organizations about solutions to homelessness.

We saw and spoke with plenty of individuals that are in situational poverty.  A man who came to our soup kitchen was almost late because he was working on his resume and setting up job interviews. Another man had a storied background in commercial real estate, but fell ill due to a mental breakdown.  Thanks to the services they're receiving from POTS and other organizations, they're going to make it out of this dark period okay.  We also saw quite a few people on the other end of the spectrum, who likely will never make it out of homelessness, much less poverty.  I think the conversation about homelessness, especially on the conservative side of the aisle, is geared too much towards solutions at times.  The fact is that there's a number of people that won't be able to participate in society as we know it.  Perhaps it is these individuals own fault that they're living on the streets. Perhaps it's not.  It's irresponsible to view the homeless as a homogeneous group.  Their stories, circumstances, and ability to obtain self-sufficiency all vary greatly.  Perhaps there are individuals who are abusing the programs offered to them, but it's evident when you serve people all day that struggle to look you in the eye out of shame that the vast majority are not.  People don't want to be impoverished. It almost sounds foolish in this context, but it's this kind of rhetoric that individuals will use to avoid contributing.

I think my biggest takeaway from the New York trip was the importance of unconditional volunteerism.  Sometimes we get so bogged down with the discussion of what to do about homelessness that we forget that there are individuals suffering right now and organizations trying to serve these individuals that desperately need a hand.  There's no politics in volunteering.  Even if you think we should cut welfare spending, there are still individuals that are miserable.  Some of these individuals might just need a good interaction--a smile from a helpful stranger--to restore their humanity and their fight to create a better tomorrow.

Kramer Howell

"The world is the biggest living organism. The tides have their highs and lows, the oceans pulse like our hearts, the sky changes colors like our moods.  Thanking the world for allowing us to participate."