Service Work: Action On-The-Scene and Behind-the-Scenes
Everyone chooses their own type of service work to participate in, whether it be because of passion or simplicity. Regardless of reason, everyone has their own aspirations and goals when actually doing their service work. My current service work consists of volunteering with WaterDrop LA, an organization in LA that distributes water to homeless people in the Skid Row area in an effort to combat the struggle of finding clean water associated with homelessness. Prior to volunteering with WaterDrop LA, my service work consisted of being a tutor within my school’s district, focusing on STEM subjects. Being a tutor, and the idea of helping people improve academically, made me believe that you could create meaningful change just by simply showing up and helping out. However, after having read many texts regarding the structural issues that surround homelessness and the issue WaterDrop LA is combating, as well as helping out at a Drop, my outlook on service work has changed. While many people say that good service work targets the structural issues directly, I say that the best way to go about my service work is to create movement between direct experience and organizational involvement, because this allows us to meet the needs of the people we serve.
Having previously done service work as a tutor, my outlook on service work used to be very different. I used to believe that helping people enough times could eventually bring about total change. What I mean by this is that by helping people a lot, they could eventually gain the knowledge and skills needed to tackle anything, and it would remove the need for tutors. I believed this because I was very good at what I did, as I had the ability to teach other students and help them understand whatever they might have been struggling with. I also saw good results with my tutoring, as many of my friends and other students that I helped would report an increase in grades, good test scores, or higher work completion percentage. Given my efficacy with tutoring, it makes sense as to why I would believe that enough assistance could make someone reach a peak of knowledge, meaning that they would no longer need help. Now that I am reflecting on such a belief, I notice many flaws with it. Sure, helping this set of students helps them improve, but what about the next set of students and the classes that follow after? Root issues, such as lack of access to resources and personal issues that affect learning, cannot be tackled via means of repetitive tutoring. We must look for ways to help students that can produce long-term changes, even if such approaches start off small. The beginning of the change in my ideology was actually quite recent, and it all starts with the exposure to and understanding of structural issues.
Reading the texts in class and being exposed to the structural issues that surround homelessness caused my outlook on service work to change drastically. WaterDrop LA’s main goal is to combat homelessness, so its structural issues mainly revolve around housing situations, such as housing costs and quality of homeless shelters. Palta’s article says how poor living conditions are frequent within the shelters, and there have been “reports of bedbugs, rats, foul odors, poor lighting, harassment, lax care in medical wards and even a “chicken incubator””. This issue can be fixed by more supervision, but that’s the issue- there is no supervision of these shelters, and the organizations that run the shelters don’t care enough to check on them. Another structural issue that I was exposed to regarding homelessness were the issues that surround the transition from prison back into society. An article done by Suffolk University mentions that the “various economic and social mechanisms that prevent formerly incarcerated people from securing safe housing — including having a criminal record, being unable to get a well-paying job, and dealing with addiction and mental health issues.” The inability for many of these previously incarcerated people to get a home, primarily due to high costs and criminal record, contributes to the growing issue of homelessness. The article also mentions how it would be better if we took rental history into consideration over criminal history, but it is unlikely that such measures could be achieved. The issues that revolve around homelessness also affect education, given that many homeless students have their education affected by constantly being on the move. Ineffective education might require the assistance of a tutor to do well, but this would only be short-term help, and doesn’t really help with improving the living situation of the people affected. The struggles of many homeless people, as a result of these structural issues, is fairly noticeable when doing service work, as I have experienced lately.
Direct experience and volunteering have also shown me that every person has a unique situation. I have only gone to two Drops so far with WaterDrop, and I have mainly worked at the truck helping to load cars with water for distribution across other areas of Skid Row. The truck does also interact with many homeless people, as we are the main source of water for the people around the area by Catch 21. The struggles of many of these people are noticeable when I interact with them, as many of them have dirty clothes and some are unkempt. A few of them are also disabled and have to use walkers or wheelchairs to get around, and then have to also carry the water that we distribute to them. I’ve also noticed that many of the people I interact with ask for extra items, such as food or clothing. The only thing I can really do is tell them that we will try to have such items next week. The reality that is seen when you volunteer for a Drop and interact with less fortunate people is quite sad. I’ve realized that most of these people are still jolly, thankful, and just try to live their lives in a city that has neglected them and cast them aside. The fact that these people have to ask for food and clothing items, as well as WaterDrop having to distribute water, shows how little the city cares for them. I can volunteer and distribute as much water as I want, but I must do something extra in order to start creating change that will help the people I serve in a more meaningful way.
Ultimately, the knowledge I’ve gained on structural issues and personal experience have resulted in a new outlook on how to approach my service work in a way that will have the greatest impact: create movement between direct experience and organizational involvement. To elaborate, the best way to go about service work is to create a back and forth between volunteering and participating behind-the-scenes. WaterDrop holds meetings every week where they discuss planning for the drops, so this would be a great way to create that movement. The direct experience, which is volunteering, allows for one to interact with those we serve and hear their situations and what they might need. Consequently, this allows us to request these items at the meetings and have them ready to go for the upcoming drop, such as food, extra clothing, bags, canisters, and any other items that the people may need. This seems like a very effective way of approaching service work, as you partake in the short-term but also begin building ground towards the long-term changes.
One may ask themselves, “Well, why not do more?” To put it simply, although structural issues are the main target for change to occur, time and current conditions prevent such a thing. To clarify, current conditions mean the economic and political situations that regard the matter of combating homelessness. Housing costs are one of the root causes of homelessness, but this is too difficult to tackle directly. You would have to contact various developers, as well as the mayor of LA in order to get something started. Shelters are a less directly impactful issue, but they are still fairly difficult to deal with. One would have to get in contact with politicians who can discuss plans with the organizations that run the shelters, and this is also fairly challenging. Influence and attention may be difficult things to obtain, but the greatest limitation for combating structural issues is time. I am currently a freshman in college, and I have lots of work for my classes and other activities I partake in that leave me with little time to do other things. Attracting attention to housing costs and shelter conditions requires lots of time and dedication, as it is something you have to set time aside for and go out of your way to do. Dedicating large periods of time is unrealistic for me, and anyone basically- it would require your career to bring about change to the structural issues surrounding homelessness. It’s important to ask ourselves whether we can and should do more. Personally, I think we can’t do more. As long as the city doesn’t want to change and care for their people, homeless populations will persist and continue to grow. All we can do is try to improve their lives as much as we can, and pray for a miracle that the city will care for their people and pitch in to help them escape the streets.
