Making Good Service Attractive and Effective
When we actively engage with our community through service, we often are enriched by a sensation of fulfillment and accomplishment. However, these feelings too may be followed by feelings of privilege and guilt. Experiencing first-hand a community in subordinate circumstances may be awakening and perspective-changing as we recognize the disparity between others’ living situations and ours. Additionally, we begin to eliminate our uninformed dispositions and notions of the “single story” when we connect with the community members just as we would with any other person. Though individuals with housing and resource insecurity are often labeled exclusively as recipients, we must not only remember that humans are programmed to sustain like every other being, but also that these problems have deeper rooting and require far more than small acts of charity. Annie Ly prefaces this idea in her testimony of service noting that, “Positioning myself as a learner and not merely a “provider” allowed me to be a better listener and become more receptive to the true needs of the community” (Ly, 2023). She recognizes the ladder of roles when it comes to service, and how breaking down that barrier not only heightens the culture of charity, but elevates its effectiveness in completely solving the problems. Charity, though being essential in addressing resource and housing insecurity, can perpetuate these issues by reinforcing stereotypes and fostering dependency among beneficiaries. I used to think that service only entailed charity, however real service, which is informed by first hand experience and actively interacting with the community, should aim for societal change by reforming the culture of charity in a direction which emancipates individuals from irregular living conditions and displays them as equals.
Charity, to an extent, is an essential element in the endeavor to addressing resource and housing insecurity. As previously mentioned, it is in human nature to maintain one’s life meaning everyone naturally will do what is required of them or accept what is offered them to maintain themselves, which in no case should be wrong. Specifically in Skid Row, “there are about 6,000 permanent residents in hotels and approximately 2,500 homeless individuals with actual numbers varying by season and time of month” (LA Community Redevelopment Agency, 2005). This means nearly 9,000 people experience housing struggles which entails resource and nutrition problems. The essence of charity is to give to others what they don’t have in aims of building community and fulfilling their needs. Charitable acts only go so far and have to be directed and target underlying issues. In Rory Brown and Avik Chatterjee’s review of homeless eating patterns in the US they found that, “families experiencing homelessness tend to have poor diets, lacking healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables, but high in intake of unhealthy sugars and fats. Barriers to healthy eating included lack of access to cooking and storage resources in the shelter environment, the high cost of healthy foods, and little access to healthy eating options.” (Brown and Chatterjee, 2018). This is one of the issues that will continue to prevail if the charity offered only focuses on providing as much food as possible as opposed to nutritional food that adheres to a balanced diet. They also found that, “interventions to address dietary inadequacies were limited to nutrition education programs, and did not show any significant change in eating behaviors.” Again, the intention of offering resources are good, but their has to be a true sense of intent and direction for progress to be made. If the nature of charity continues to be unfocused, these issues will only grow worse.
Charity can inadvertently prolong these issues by reinforcing negative stereotypes and keeping beneficiaries in a dependent position. It is not the actual charity that is wrong, but the relationships it promotes and the shallow goals it ends up completing. Those who do service and truly want to administer lasting aid cannot view themselves as “greater” for what they are doing, but must reinforce the fact that they are exactly human just like the people they are helping. Mary Malumyan shares her initial experience of being a service provider as being one that characterized the common mistake stating, “I did not understand how to emotionally connect with them [the students], and they didn’t know how to reach out to me for support” (Malumyan, 2023). From this excerpt, she points out that there is a necessity for a mutual relationship to be created in order for her service to be of actual use. Without any relationship, she would still be offering a charitable act, but it would ultimately accomplish nothing. She adds, “I believe that the foundation of good service exists in an egalitarian form of service, where we treat our community members as our equals and not simply beneficiaries. In doing so, we open up doors of opportunities to build genuine relationships with others and identify the root problem within the community; because; without truly hearing the perspective of the people directly effected by the issue, we fall into the trap of the single story.” She highlights that a person who does good service has a desire not only to uplift marginalized communities, but wants to foster relationship with community members. It is one thing to offer and provide aid that directly helps individuals, but actually doing so physically in person makes a significant and enduring difference. Like Mary, I too performed charity with a “savior” complex, and did poorly at genuinely connecting with the community I was helping.
My perspective of charity has altered through my experiences of service, evolving based on the circumstances of those being served. In my first provision of community engagement, I volunteered at a Compton pre-school where a food collection and redistribution organization set up an event for local families to receive food and goods for the upcoming holiday season. In my work, I packed and moved boxes of food and supplies to and from trucks for several hours, and eventually began to hand out the products to families. I enjoyed the position I was in, distributing tons of food in order for others to maintain themselves and their families. However, I’ve come to realize the irony in these past feelings. I, a young teenager, felt like a savior to families I had never met. These people were just like anyone, yet ignorantly felt like I was completely solving the problems of grown adults. I wasn’t obnoxious about it, but the pride that filled me reinforces the idea of the hierarchical structure in service. The community members were extremely thankful and appreciative of all the work the organization had done, but I didn’t even make any real connections with those who came. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become better at recognize my privilege and blessing compared to the circumstances that many are subject to. With this increased awareness, I have become conscious of the extensive need in my community too. Throughout high school, my sister and I created a food waste prevention initiative, Oranges for Others, where we would go door to door in our neighborhood and neighborhoods across the San Fernando Valley requesting homeowner’s if we could pick some fruit to be donated to the Valley Rescue Mission Food Banks. The fruit, once donated, would be redistributed to those who needed it instead of it rotting away, unutilized. This work also made me feel engaged with my community, however I never actually interacted with those who would receive the fruit. This limited the effectiveness of my charity, and the extent to my perspective, as I again failed to create relationships. Anyhow, now affiliated with WaterDrop Los Angeles, I am once again given the opportunity to provide to my community while making lasting relationships with the Skid Row population, allowing my work to combat the deeper rooted, societal problems revolving around food and housing insecurity. My testimony as well as those referenced hold as proof that charity alone will not solve the problem, but we must redirect our attention to systemic change and the requests of the Skid Row population.
The homeless population of Skid Row is made up of humans, capable of acknowledging their needs just like anyone. Two residents, Jossalyn and Michelle, emotionally share their experience living on Skid Row and the conditions they endure. In addition to putting up with the stereotypes of mental illness and drug abuse, they both urge that the issue is housing affordability (Jossalyn and Michelle). Downtown LA, being one of the most expensive places to live, also has an increasingly large homeless population due to insufficient housing. If charity is programmed to not only provide goods, but create homes, a more lasting and effective outcome is produced. However, volunteers are only capable of so much, requiring government and officials to step in and address the systemic issue. Homelessness follows a patterned cycle of need, trying to fulfill need, then generating more need, commonly ignored by society. Proper legislation is required to combat this cycle, permanently housing homeless with adequate necessities, that also offers these people the capacity to self-sustain through work or service. Though vague, this idea can act as a framework for a long-term solution which can ultimately eliminate homelessness and promote equality.
