Who Am I Trying To Help?
I came into the YMCA North London hoping to make a broad difference to the lives of the residents. I imagined that any help would be gratefully received and hungrily taken up. That was a naive perspective. My current view is more pragmatic.
In the first week of my placement, a colleague at the YMCA said I would go through stages at the YMCA (akin to the stages of grief). She didn’t say where I’d end up, but assured me my views would change by themselves. Though I nodded, I didn’t believe her. I hoped my then-views were well-informed and settled already.
Some residents do not want to leave the YMCA. Some are comfortable in the YMCA and have found a sort of equilibrium in their lives. The welfare system makes low paying work precarious and the shortage of housing makes the YMCA look easy. It makes staying on benefits in a hostel with some friends and catering seem bearable. On my rounds checking on some high-risk residents’ wellbeing I noticed TVs, play stations, guitars and amps, lots of clothes, bikes (though they’re not allowed to keep them in their rooms), laptops, sound systems, radios… In short, rooms that look like those of students living in halls of residents.
A resident I asked about this, M., said that he doesn’t want to make his room comfortable. He says it will encourage him to stay and make him lazy. His room is spartan. It makes sense. The idea of moving-on is challenging enough without the added stress of dealing with stuff.
These residents contradict the purpose of the YMCA, as I understand it. They would stay as long as they could. It’s hard to blame them for that given the future they imagine awaits them outside the hostel. But they’re here, and they meet with staff and take up resources. This is where the ideology I came in with breaks down. Shouldn’t all residents want to leave the YMCA and make their way in life?
It isn’t that simple. And the hostel defeats its own purpose in some respects. With a canteen and support, it would be easy for a person to get used to a new level of diminished responsibility. A life in a lonely flat with a low paying job offers none of the predictability, community, and service available in the YMCA. And the longer they stay at the YMCA the more this compounds. Their perception of reality gets anchored to life on benefits within the YMCA. I’ve heard long time residents blame the YMCA for many self inflicted problems more so than greener residents.
And then there are the residents I imagined. Those that are recently unfortunate, leaving an abusive or dangerous situation, or even fleeing Syria. Helping these people is at once the easiest and quickest route to moving people on. They need immediate and acute help, not the chronic help of the others.
Is it ethical to focus on them rather than the others? Does it help to narrow rather than to broaden my view? My first month has nuanced my perception of need, though not enough. But I still have four more months…
