Midterm Project/ Kaitlin Lara

Kaitlin-- what an informative and engaging project. I appreciate the care you took designing the website to include both writing and videos, both "facts" and experiences, from homeless individuals as well as anti-homeless experts. In my mid-sem project, I focused on disability in Philadlephia and I found (not surprisingly) that many disability struggles here are connected to homelessness as well, and that a quarter of the homeless population in Philly has a disability. That made me even more engaged by your project, because I was thinking about how we can use some of the insights and programs regarding homelessness in LA here in Philadelphia. Tiny homes, for example, and the service-oriented community that surrounds them-- why do we not have those in every city with pervasive, widespread homelessness? I was also struck by the video about Skid Row, particularly the language of containment, so that the government could be less thurough on services in those areas and criminalize homelessness through high police presence in the neighborhood. I have been thinking a bit about how Skid Row and the Tiny Home neighborhoods do similar "containment" work, but in very different ways and with very different real outcomes. The Tiny Homes draw and "contain" homeless people by giving them access to shelter, social services, and a sense of community. Skid Row "contains" people through surveilance, lack of access to social services (as you wrote that only half of homeless people recieve public assistence, etc.), and abandonment more generally. I will continue to reflect on the similarities and differences between these modes of containment and consider how the tiny home communities, which really do seem like a good step forward, may also isolate communities of houseless people from the broader city, and what that means in terms of outcomes.

Great job!!

Hi Kaitlin, I loved your mid-semester project! This project is so important to better understand the realtionship between homelessness and disablity, as disabled people are more likely to be homeless and homeless people are more likely to be disabled. I really like how you organized your website into different topics related to homelessness. It was helpful that you first started by showing how homelessness is defined in the US. I found it a little strange how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines four different categories of homelessness instead of creating an all-encompassing defintition. It was good that they brought other issues such as domestic violence into their definitions, but the four categories they describe are so interconnected that it would have been helpful to create a more general and inclusive defintion using all the ideas they included. It also would have been good to include how homelessness relates to disability in the definition, since that is an important point. The definition of chronic homelessness better incorporates disability's impact on homelessness since 20% of homeless people experience chronic homelessness.

I like how you included a section dedicated to misconceptions and a section for current solutions. An important misconception you addressed was the false idea that "getting a job will keep someone out of homelessness." Just as the disability justice movement explains that anti-capitalist politic is essential for the disabled community, it is also needed to address homelessness. So many people struggle to get by and have their basic needs met because minimum wage jobs are truly not liveable. Reading through the myths section reminds me of past misconceptions about disabilites, such as assuming a disabled person must be sinful, and it is crucial to address these misconceptions in order to help the homeless and disabled communities. I love the creation of tiny home villages in LA, and it reminds me of non-profits in Philadelpha like Face to Face in Germantown that provide free services to the homeless community. These groups provide much needed relief, but it frustrates me that the homeless community has to rely on the charity of others to survive instead of the goverment ensuring that all Americans can earn liveable wages and have access to basic human rights such as safe housing, nutritious food, healthcare, education, and potable water. It is disturbing that these things are not guarnteed in one of the wealthies nations in the world, and these issues have created large health disparities among underserved communities. Like you explained, these disparaties have only risen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, I appreciated the final section highlighting the lived experiences of two disabled people. I thought it was great that you included the stories of two homeless individuals from very different backgrounds, as Tammy had been homeless for over forty years while Michelle became homeless more recently. This demonstrates how the impact of homelessness varies greatly among individuals, and I'm glad you featured the experiences of these women in your project.

Thank you for sharing this project! It was very interersting and informative!