Testing Prototype — Homeless Center on Wheels
Johnson Au, 20 August 2015, Urban Nomads, Field Note
Loretta, Rachel and I visited the Tung Chau Street flyover “homelessness area” again today to collect feedback and further ideas for our suggested idea — Homeless Center on Wheels. To our surprise, the feedback was overwhelming as we were able to interview 9 citizens in total.
Keep it clean and tidy
Our first interviewee, nicknamed Keung, was a Vietnamese immigrant who spoke fluent Cantonese. He liked our idea of shower rooms very much as it is very hot during Summer, sometimes he had to stay up until 3–4 am because of the unbearable heat.
Keung was a special one. To the contrary of common perception towards homelessness, he was very conscious on cleanliness. Hint of bleach was discovered from his place and he was actually doing cleaning work. For him, keeping a place tidy is important as he insisted rules to be put in place, and a manager to be employed, in order to regulate the proposed truck.
On the mini pantry, he said people should bring their own utensils as sharing public ones would be messy. Thanks to his Vietnamese heritage, Keung suggested that Vietnamese translation of the regulations should be provided so that Vietnamese newcomers of the community could understand the rules.
He will never live alone
The second interviewee was a Vietnamese named Jackie. He stayed on the street not because he could not afford the rent, but he did not want to stay in an apartment alone.
I don’t want to face the walls in an empty apartment
He was receptive of the pantry idea as he often cook with stove on the street, though he was not that much into the mailbox idea. Jackie introduced us to another man who mentioned that water supply is limited in that area and the homeless have to walk a long way to get water. He also said that hot water supply would be very much welcomed as it could be used to heat cup noodles.
The truck should be managed
Then we interviewed a pair of local homeless. They liked the shower as well since bathing facilities are not available after 11pm. Also, accessible bathrooms are not available so it is difficult for the physically impaired to clean themselves. On the other hand, the lady said toilets are not really necessary as it would be messy after use.
They thought there should be a manager, preferably those with local knowledge such as social worker, to keep the place tidy and mediate conflicts between the local and Vietnamese homeless camps.
We can’t eat three lunchboxes for one meal
Our next pair of interviewees were a pair of volunteers who frequent the homeless camp as they volunteered to keep the place clean. Again, they believed showering facilities are great for the community. On eating, they revealed an issue for the current lunchboxes distribution efforts. Apparently, the current efforts were not coordinated and sometimes the homeless received three lunchboxes per meal which led to wastage. For the communication facility, they mentioned mailbox service can be useful as some of the homeless may go to jail and there is a genuine need for mailing.
Stakeholders’ views
We also interviewed some stakeholders. A venue management contractor in the Tung Chau Street Park Squash Centre acknowledged the fact that there were indeed some misuses of the bathing facilities in his venue by the homeless. He stressed that the bathroom there should be used by venue users only. A cleansing contractor also acknowledged the fact that the homeless frequent the bathrooms within the park and disrupted their normal usage so it would be good to have dedicated bathing facilities for the homeless community. There was also a side issue worth taking note: the cleansing staff collected sizable amount of used syringes even within the park, pointed to illicit drug uses in the park at night.
All in all, the bathing facilities were much welcomed but there were different views towards the pantry and mailbox. We shall refine our prototypes accordingly and hopefully formulate a better proposal.
