Good Service: The community needs direct Communication
When talking about good service, people would directly connect service with well-developed charity organizations and become a part of the strict power dynamics within the organization. I have worked with a Migrant Women's Organization which is strict on volunteers and given certain rules on what the volunteers should and should not do. I disagree with this system, which I think good service should allow deep engagement with the community such that volunteers become a part of the community and feel free to chat with the people who need help. Authentic connections are vital between the community and volunteers instead of the organization controlling two sides and focusing only on the organization’s interests. A strict hierarchy would prevent authentic connection because it blocks the volunteers from talking with community members directly based on the strict rules set for the volunteers. Through authentic communication, people can directly express their needs to the ones who are willing to help, but not use a third party to pursue the organization’s interest.
To understand how we pass out good service, the first thing would be we need to understand the foundation of a good service. The foundation of a good service is the deep engagement between organizations and the community because only when deep engagement with the community exists, there be a chance for people to understand the community's needs. Take the current U.S. homeless people as an example. Before I started to engage in the community, there would be people around me warning me that I should keep myself safe within the university walls. The people who are homeless do have bad behaviors such as extreme mental issues or taking drugs regularly. However, as I extend my stay around USC, there would be no difference between people outside of campus taking drugs and people on campus taking drugs. Every party going to USC would have some people taking drugs and even in some football games at the weekend. I started to doubt my first thoughts about homeless people and tried to read more articles on better understanding the community around me. Colburn mentioned in his investigation of the Los Angeles housing issue and said, “It became clear that rental costs and vacancy rate were by far the biggest predictor of the homelessness rate within one county”. From his words, it became clear that the key reason for the high homelessness rate in Los Angeles is caused by the unaffordable housing but not what people and some media thought as mental health issues or drug issues. During Colburn’s research, he also speaks with the people who are currently homeless and asks their opinion on the housing issues, which shows the importance of people engaging in the community to understand what is the actual problem of the community.
However, although we started to have an idea of what a good service looks like, the more common existence of service is the traditional charity work. A third-person perspective organization would always stand up to represent the community and tell the society what the community needs, which gives out blurry information because there is limited communication between the organization and the community. I learned the importance of how information needs to be passed directly when I was in high school. As I mentioned earlier, I worked with a Migrant Women organization when I was in high school. In the first year, I tutored these kids in math and English so they could catch up with the classes in school because a lot of other kids their age would pay for attending extra-curricular classes while their families could not afford that. A year later, I transferred to another city and I started to work with the organization online and ceased tutoring with the kids. I was restricted from deeper engagement with the kids and their parents, and I could only see how the kids were going through social media, but I did not find a lot about them. I noticed the organization is hosting activities such as movie nights, sexual orientation lectures, and dramas. Those activities are important, and the kids do enjoy them. A lot of people have seen the effort the organization is making and the donation number seems to increase more than before. A year later, I talked with these kids again when I visited them and brought them some snacks. The little girl was saying the tutoring program was canceled and she did not receive as much help as before. All she could do was work even harder by herself but could still feel hard to enter into some of the top secondary schools within the city. I was shocked at that moment hearing what she had suffered and it made me wonder behind all those fascinating activities and large donations, did the community members receive what they needed? The obvious answer seems not. The kids were not being well cared for and their voices could not be heard through this kind of community service.
After I experienced the problems of traditional organizations, I would start to argue that a good service would break down the hierarchy in the organization which would create space for the volunteers to directly talk with the community members. Jason Mcgahan has invested deeply in the Skid Row community about why so many people ended up being homeless and what would be the typical life for people at Skid Row. He talked with specific people about suffering from the high housing prices and also about a woman who is waiting for her partner to come out of incarceration. She mentioned the history of Miami being abandoned by his mom at Skid Row which she said she would never do. At the same time, she was also holding the wish of getting a house for Miami after he came out. With deep engagement and communication, Mcgahan would write a detailed report about Skid Row and try to raise social awareness that the large population at this place needs affordable housing.
After we notice that deep communication within the community would create good service, the next step would be how good services could be created. In other words, why would the community choose to trust you instead of others? As we all know, skid row has existed for a couple of decades in which there have been organizations trying to engage in the community. However, it seems obvious that there would be only a few remaining because of the harshness required to build a good relationship. I would say WaterDrop LA does a great job of building up relationships with the community. That was on my first shift with the organization and we needed to arrive at Catch 21 for a refill of water and finish our route. While we were waiting for the truck to arrive, an old man came up to us and started a conversation. He seems to be a friend of one of my teammates and they are communicating about the recent situation going on in skid row. Although I was a new person arriving, he greeted me super friendly and pulled me into the conversation about the community's needs while we were all waiting. Also, on the way to giving out water, when I asked random people passing by, they were all willing to say hello even though they might not need water at the moment. They did not hesitate to come up to me and ask for other supplies than water and I would tell the group if we did not have it in our car.
From the two stories I have experienced within the Skid Row community, it could easily be seen how well the organization connects with the community. Even as a new volunteer, I was being equally treated and asked for help if they needed it. I feel comfortable working in an organization and passing out services. Especially when I see a large group of families asking for water to withstand the next week, I would be super glad to give them 2 gallons per person, since I know how hard it is to struggle with such a large family on skid row.
From then on, I noticed how essential breaking down the hierarchy structure within the organization was to help the service to pass out more fluently. Moreover, the people who need the service can receive what they want by asking directly but not carrying blurred information from another party.
