I have come to value connection through my work building relationships and establishing trust with unsheltered people and the service providers who care for them.
Throughout college, I worked at ROOTS, an emergency shelter for young adults. I began as a volunteer after writing an essay on the human right to shelter. I was soon hired to volunteer supervision and spent the last years as a Program Manager, responsible for the safety of the space and the people in it. In this, I came to know and love my clients, my coworkers, fellow service providers, and the broader community we have established through a dedication to ending homelessness.
After learning all I could in shelters, I worked for an incredibly organization called REACH, where I provided long-term, intensive outreach case management services to people who were implicated in the criminal legal system because of crimes of poverty (largely sex work and drug use). In this work, I literally and metaphorically met people where they were, working with them towards their own understandings of dignity, agency, safety, and belonging. At REACH, I learned that case management is about broadening someone's circle of support and expanding communication skills by modeling and encouraging them.
I have continued this work in San Francisco, through the SF Homeless Outreach Team (colloquially dibbed the HOT team), where I work to house and stabilize people who have been chronically unhoused. Building relationships with my clients drives my work.
In forming these connections, I have come to realize that relationships change lives, connections are interventions, and that boundaries are fundamental to sustainability.
Throughout college, I worked at ROOTS, an emergency shelter for young adults. I began as a volunteer after writing an essay on the human right to shelter. I was soon hired to volunteer supervision and spent the last years as a Program Manager, responsible for the safety of the space and the people in it. In this, I came to know and love my clients, my coworkers, fellow service providers, and the broader community we have established through a dedication to ending homelessness.
After learning all I could in shelters, I worked for an incredibly organization called REACH, where I provided long-term, intensive outreach case management services to people who were implicated in the criminal legal system because of crimes of poverty (largely sex work and drug use). In this work, I literally and metaphorically met people where they were, working with them towards their own understandings of dignity, agency, safety, and belonging. At REACH, I learned that case management is about broadening someone's circle of support and expanding communication skills by modeling and encouraging them.
I have continued this work in San Francisco, through the SF Homeless Outreach Team (colloquially dibbed the HOT team), where I work to house and stabilize people who have been chronically unhoused. Building relationships with my clients drives my work.
In forming these connections, I have come to realize that relationships change lives, connections are interventions, and that boundaries are fundamental to sustainability.
RELATIONSHIPS CHANGE LIVES.
FEBRUARY 2017-JULY 2021
In my work as a service provider caring for unsheltered people, I have viscerally felt the sentiment that "relationships change lives." This began with the shelter across from my University, where I spent (arguably) too much time during my undergraduate years.
ROOTS is an emergency shelter for unstably housed young adults (aged 18-26). It sits in the basement of a church, with fifty prison mats scattered across the floor, worn tiles, grimy tables, five-bathroom stalls, and two laundry machines. Before opening, the room is quiet except for the hum of lazy fans. At nine o’clock, the room suddenly fills with clients, volunteers and staff. On good nights, there is loud laughter, heavy guitar strums, quiet conversations, the sound of forks on plates, and the rustling of sheets on mats. Our clients come to access basic services. Our volunteers and staff work to build community and foster dignity with our clients, so that each night I get to watch people, housed and unhoused, make meaningful connections with each other.
As I spent more time in the shelter space, the more I came to care for and love the people that we serve. My experiences within this space have informed my commitment to genuine connection as a radical politic that can motivate change and improve circumstances. Through ROOTS, I have learned how to intentionally seek the best in people and how to best connect through laughter despite trauma. The people that we serve remain among the most resilient, most humble, and kindest people I have ever had the privilege of meeting.
My decision to volunteer at the shelter fundamentally changed the trajectory of my academic and professional career. And I like to think that the care that I provided in the moments they people truly needed it changed theirs.
ROOTS is an emergency shelter for unstably housed young adults (aged 18-26). It sits in the basement of a church, with fifty prison mats scattered across the floor, worn tiles, grimy tables, five-bathroom stalls, and two laundry machines. Before opening, the room is quiet except for the hum of lazy fans. At nine o’clock, the room suddenly fills with clients, volunteers and staff. On good nights, there is loud laughter, heavy guitar strums, quiet conversations, the sound of forks on plates, and the rustling of sheets on mats. Our clients come to access basic services. Our volunteers and staff work to build community and foster dignity with our clients, so that each night I get to watch people, housed and unhoused, make meaningful connections with each other.
As I spent more time in the shelter space, the more I came to care for and love the people that we serve. My experiences within this space have informed my commitment to genuine connection as a radical politic that can motivate change and improve circumstances. Through ROOTS, I have learned how to intentionally seek the best in people and how to best connect through laughter despite trauma. The people that we serve remain among the most resilient, most humble, and kindest people I have ever had the privilege of meeting.
My decision to volunteer at the shelter fundamentally changed the trajectory of my academic and professional career. And I like to think that the care that I provided in the moments they people truly needed it changed theirs.
CONNECTION AS INTERVENTION
WINTER 2018-SPRING 2019
Throughout my sophomore and junior years, I served as an intern for the The Doorway Project, which aims to create a space where no one is homeless and where everyone feels safe and welcome. This service began through a desire to participate in the creation of something I felt would benefit my clients, who I felt deeply connected to.
I began this project from the understanding that young people experiencing homelessness need a space where they feel they belong and they feel completely safe and welcome. Too often, they are banished from public spaces despite their lives being entirely dependent on the occupation of public spaces. This is dehumanizing and disheartening--something that I often hear my clients at ROOTS struggle with as we engage and connect.
The Doorway Project has the capacity and the potential to create the kind of space that my clients need. The Doorway Project is unique in that it is an intentional collaboration between the University of Washington, the City of Seattle, and direct service providers. This project encourages collaboration amongst existing resources and aims to expand the concept of "community" to involve (and elicit support from) both the housed and the unhoused. It is entirely client-centered and intends to create a space where communities converge and clients can reach their full potential.
Through getting to know people and attempting to understand their perspectives, I have also realized the immense hope and resilience of people when working towards the same goal. Individually, we knew some things, but together we know a lot.
While I completely support the concept of the cafe and respect the people who work for it, the Doorway Project has proven to be an exercise in patience, in hope, and in flexibility for me. While the biggest strength of the Doorway Project is in its abstract flexibility, it has been difficult to operate without clear and concise definitions of the project or its mission. It has constantly evolved and adapted to feedback from clients and service providers in ways that drastically altered the path that I believed it to be taking. While this was difficult for me to adapt to, it is so very necessary in a world of service provision that tends to decree rather than listen. Throughout the process, I have learned a great deal about the structuring and service capacity of providers. I have accepted, more and more, that capacity is often dictated by resource scarcity. This often arises as limitations with funding, in the staff capacity to empathize and connect, and in a lack of collaboration.
Still, despite these frustrations, I did my best to be creative and resilient as I believed that it was serving my clients at shelter. I cared for them, so I cared for this project.
I began this project from the understanding that young people experiencing homelessness need a space where they feel they belong and they feel completely safe and welcome. Too often, they are banished from public spaces despite their lives being entirely dependent on the occupation of public spaces. This is dehumanizing and disheartening--something that I often hear my clients at ROOTS struggle with as we engage and connect.
The Doorway Project has the capacity and the potential to create the kind of space that my clients need. The Doorway Project is unique in that it is an intentional collaboration between the University of Washington, the City of Seattle, and direct service providers. This project encourages collaboration amongst existing resources and aims to expand the concept of "community" to involve (and elicit support from) both the housed and the unhoused. It is entirely client-centered and intends to create a space where communities converge and clients can reach their full potential.
Through getting to know people and attempting to understand their perspectives, I have also realized the immense hope and resilience of people when working towards the same goal. Individually, we knew some things, but together we know a lot.
While I completely support the concept of the cafe and respect the people who work for it, the Doorway Project has proven to be an exercise in patience, in hope, and in flexibility for me. While the biggest strength of the Doorway Project is in its abstract flexibility, it has been difficult to operate without clear and concise definitions of the project or its mission. It has constantly evolved and adapted to feedback from clients and service providers in ways that drastically altered the path that I believed it to be taking. While this was difficult for me to adapt to, it is so very necessary in a world of service provision that tends to decree rather than listen. Throughout the process, I have learned a great deal about the structuring and service capacity of providers. I have accepted, more and more, that capacity is often dictated by resource scarcity. This often arises as limitations with funding, in the staff capacity to empathize and connect, and in a lack of collaboration.
Still, despite these frustrations, I did my best to be creative and resilient as I believed that it was serving my clients at shelter. I cared for them, so I cared for this project.
LEARNING BOUNDARIES
FEBRUARY 2017-PRESENT
For every ten good nights at shelter, there is one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night. It would be disingenuous to talk about the ways that ROOTS has beautifully changed me without also talking about the often brutal ways I have been forced to adapt.
I want to be clear that many of my clients have rich histories of trauma and violence in their lives. This impacts the ways that they are able to interact with us and the ways that they are able to accept our care. Often, this has meant that their trauma is externalized in a desperate attempt to meet a need; to gain control, safety, or autonomy in a space that is otherwise unable to provide it. There is often conflict in the space, which my team is uniquely responsible for addressing and de-escalating.
I have struggled immensely with high levels of violence in the shelter space. I have been threatened many times, screamed at, postured at, pushed against a wall, stood between people about to fight, and had a gun held to my clients with me standing between. Each time, I was protected enough to feel able to return. For a while, I was able to ignore the compassion fatigue and heightened anxiety that came with artfully avoiding the impact of the traumatic experiences.
It took getting maced to force me to acknowledge the ways I was sacrificing my well-being for my work. I had to decide whether shelter was important enough to me to make the changes necessary to make it sustainable. I clung to my belief that in our most frightening, painful, lonely moments, everyone deserves someone to care for them. Including myself. I created and implemented more safety measures in our staffing structure with the input of clients. I am creating a trauma-informed program to increase safety and support for struggling clients. Most importantly, I have become more vocal about my needs. I am more willing to advocate for myself within the space, which has made me a better advocate for my clients.
While I wouldn’t recommend capsaicin as a regular intervention, it forced growth that has since proven invaluable.
I want to be clear that many of my clients have rich histories of trauma and violence in their lives. This impacts the ways that they are able to interact with us and the ways that they are able to accept our care. Often, this has meant that their trauma is externalized in a desperate attempt to meet a need; to gain control, safety, or autonomy in a space that is otherwise unable to provide it. There is often conflict in the space, which my team is uniquely responsible for addressing and de-escalating.
I have struggled immensely with high levels of violence in the shelter space. I have been threatened many times, screamed at, postured at, pushed against a wall, stood between people about to fight, and had a gun held to my clients with me standing between. Each time, I was protected enough to feel able to return. For a while, I was able to ignore the compassion fatigue and heightened anxiety that came with artfully avoiding the impact of the traumatic experiences.
It took getting maced to force me to acknowledge the ways I was sacrificing my well-being for my work. I had to decide whether shelter was important enough to me to make the changes necessary to make it sustainable. I clung to my belief that in our most frightening, painful, lonely moments, everyone deserves someone to care for them. Including myself. I created and implemented more safety measures in our staffing structure with the input of clients. I am creating a trauma-informed program to increase safety and support for struggling clients. Most importantly, I have become more vocal about my needs. I am more willing to advocate for myself within the space, which has made me a better advocate for my clients.
While I wouldn’t recommend capsaicin as a regular intervention, it forced growth that has since proven invaluable.
CONNECTION MOVING FORWARD
Through my experiences in homelessness services, I know that connection fuels my work. As a future health care provider, I will center connections with patients, making them feel safe, understood, and heard at times in their lives where they may be most scared and vulnerable.