Authenticity: The True Key to Good Service
Rising homelessness rates in Los Angeles and the United States as a whole should be cause for reflection within society. What are the structural systems that create this housing crisis? Many believe that homelessness can be attributed to mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, and poverty, but based on a study by the University of California San Diego, the common factor between the 56,000 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County is the lack of affordable housing. In the article, they explain how individuals have to pay high rent that far outweigh their medium income to the point where 50% of their income goes towards rent, which makes families at risk of homelessness. While drug addiction and mental illness can’t be overlooked as causes of homelessness, we must recognize that high housing rents coupled with lack of housing in the greater Los Angeles area contribute to the homelessness crisis and that homelessness itself can cause addiction and mental illness. Once a person becomes homeless, however, they lack access to basic human needs like water, food, and clothing. There are many organizations that aim to provide access to these human needs, like WaterDrop LA. WaterDrop is a 100% volunteer organization that aims to provide clean water to unhoused individuals in the SkidRow area by dropping off 2000+ gallons of water a week. Some may argue that Waterdrop follows a charity model where it’s impossible to make authentic relations when power dynamics are implicit in the volunteering relationships; however, I think that rooted in WaterDrop is the ability to make connections with these unhoused people and hear their stories which is the best way to go about service work. Through listening to their stories, we can advocate for their specific needs to policy-makers in WaterDrop, so they can make social change on a governmental level and abolish the structures that make lack of water an issue for individuals in these underserved communities.
Because WaterDrop serves to solve the immediate need of lack of water in underserved communities like SkidRow, some might say that WaterDrop follows a charity model where the giver-receiver relationship becomes reinforced. Based on the irony of service, a charity can be viewed as the provision of direct service where control of the service(resources and decisions affecting their distribution) remains with the provider. In the case of WaterDrop, the direct service would be handing out water. From a distance, Waterdrop volunteers could be viewed as “givers”who are the individuals that provide the water bottles and water gallons to the “receivers” who are the unhoused individuals who lack access to these supplies of water. Since students provide water which is a resource that the homeless individuals lack, it may seem as if WaterDrop reinforces the power dynamics implicit between volunteers and the unhoused individuals.
However, I’d argue that while WaterDrop is a charitable organization, it goes beyond the charity model by encouraging good service through making connections and reflecting on the power dynamics involved between volunteers and the unhoused individuals. Recently, I had the opportunity to work with WaterDrop, and I realized how they go beyond the charity “giver-receiver” model. Before we even started volunteering, I talked with one of the leaders of WaterDrop, Sofia, and I expressed that I was anxious for my first day of volunteering. She preached the idea that we should learn to break down our biases and the expectations we have of the homeless population when we interact with them. If WaterDrop was merely a charity organization, according to “irony of service” , the organization wouldn’t make “any attempt to understand or affect the structural causes of the problem”. However, through Sofia’s message and her discussion of how we should be present and acknowledge our biases, I understood that the organization attempts to bring about change through reflection on the volunteer and unhoused individuals’ relationships.
Some might ask what good service through reflecting on power dynamics and building relationships actually manifests as. Tania Mitchell’s article specifically describes developing authentic relationships as “shared understanding [that] create[s] mutuality, respect, and trust leading to authenticity. Reciprocity in the service-learning experience seeks to create an environment where all learn from and teach one another”. I think by taking the time to listen and not impose our own biases onto the communities we try to help, we can make true connections with those in need that address the inherent privilege we have as volunteers. This fosters an environment where the volunteers can learn from the community they try to aid as Mitchell describes; these actions promote true service. Through my recent experience at WaterDrop, I’ve learned how this is the case. Before we distributed water to SkidRow residents, we had a team meeting where we were encouraged to interact with the SkidRow residents with an open-mind and an open heart. Even I had my reservations before volunteering with WaterDrop because I’ve always heard disheartening stories about SkidRow, but the fact that the WaterDrop team leaders encouraged us to dispel the preconceived notions we had of this community allowed me to do my job as a volunteer better once we actually went to distribute water to SkidRow residents. As WaterDrop volunteers, it may seem like our only mission is to drop off WaterDrop to serve those unhoused people’s immediate needs, but when talking to SkidRow residents a lot of them expressed that with the recent rains, they needed warm clothing and tarps. Initially, I assumed that these residents’ main issue was lack of access to water, but soon after talking with residents, I realized that they needed much more. Many wanted sweatshirts to withstand the cold weather conditions and tarps to rebuild their homes that were destroyed by the recent winds and rain. If I just assumed that all they needed was water and didn’t take the time to make those conversations with the residents and just listen to what they had to say, I wouldn’t have been able to gain a better understanding of their true needs and situation. Many volunteers expressed that they visit some of the same residents each week to not only drop off water but to speak to them about their life and updates. WaterDrop expresses that if we’ve felt that we’ve made a connection with some of the residents, we can request to volunteer in that part of the SkidRow. By promoting the deepening of connections, WaterDrop allows a space where we can get to know the SkidRow residents better and unwound the inherent biases we have within the “giver-receiver” relationship. To me, that’s the most effective way to go about service because volunteers no longer hold themselves as the individuals who know what’s best for the community they aid, rather, we listen to what the individuals facing the problem say about what they need.
By listening and building trust with the individuals we interact with as volunteers, we can advocate to policy-makers to address the concerns that the community in need has. Mitchell describes that authenticity between the volunteer and their community partners “necessitates good communication … [and] ongoing dialogue to provide opportunities to share information, exchange feed-back, and evaluate their partnership.” After my service experience with WaterDrop, the leaders reached out to us about filling a form with suggestions for the next drop they perform. I feel like this form is a great way to facilitate action and change from one drop to the next to cater to the needs of the unhoused individuals in Skidrow based on the different conditions and circumstances they face. Like Mitchell describes, the form takes the listening and building the relationships which are good acts of service that we have done and takes it one step further by implementing the needs of the unhoused individuals. After my water drop, I filled out the form and reported that many of the unhoused individuals expressed a need for sweatshirts and tarps. Now, for the next drop, the policy-makers and leaders in waterdrop can gather those materials for the unhoused individuals to obtain the resources they need and deserve to survive their condition.
Through working with policy-makers in WaterDrop, students can create social change on a governmental level to abolish structures that create lack of access to water to unhoused individuals. In Morton’s the Irony of service, he describes “most social change or social transformation models of service [as] focus[ing] directly on politically empowering the powerless. While the forms in WaterDrop are a great way to get involved from a week to week basis, it’s important to acknowledge that this could create a dependence of the unhoused people onto WaterDrop. Rather, we as volunteers within WaterDrop can take the feedback we receive from the forms to hold brainstorming sessions on how to lobby for more access to water and housing in general to resolve the true issue of why homelessness comes about in Los Angeles County. This way, as Morton described, we can politically empower the unhoused community and ensure that the true issue of lack of water becomes resolved. Good service stems from listening and removing bias from the community we are helping to politically empower the community in need through policy change.
LINKS:
“The Irony of Service: Charity, Project, and Social Change in Service-Learning”
