Service-Learning Log 2-Hanna Gonzales

Name: Hanna Gonzales
Date of Shift: May 9th, 2008
Hours worked: 8am-3pm

On Friday the 9th of May 2008 I volunteered at Project Homeless Connect 6 on DU campus. I arrived at 8am, along with Janis, to check in at the volunteers table, where I received a nametag and a clipboard. Then Janis and I went and had breakfast with some of our other friends while we waited for our clients to arrive. Close to 9am we went outside and lined up outside the Ritchie Center as the first busload of clients arrived, a good majority of them from Urban Peak, a shelter for homeless youth. Then as we moved forward in line towards the entrance of the Ritchie Center, we were paired with a client. I was paired with a twenty-year old boy named Ted*. We introduced ourselves and I asked him if he wanted to get some breakfast. He said he wasn’t hungry, so then I proceeded to take down his information and ask him what I could help him with that day. He said that all he really needed was his social security card and some food stamps. Mostly he filled out the intake form himself and we headed for the Gates Field House. Once we got there it was a lot of standing in lines waiting to be helped. The employment line was really long, and we got there right when it opened, so not all of the volunteers had set-up. It was really annoying that volunteers were late and that it was unorganized. I felt bad but Ted was really polite and patient and he never once got angry. The employment process was probably the longest and it involved several different steps, before I was able to escort Ted over to the job fair. There was a complete lack of communication between the volunteers at the job fair and the volunteers at the interviewing and resume tables. Luckily I was able to find some to explain to me exactly what we needed to do. Then it was on to the food stamps table, where we waited for close to two hours to see a person and had to fill out a pile of paper work. In between we ate lunch and talked. He asked me about school and my classes and I asked him about his siblings and his family. Ted did eventually tell me how he became homeless, although he didn’t go into very much detail. I sort of gathered information about his life from little bits and pieces he revealed to me throughout the day. I was amazed that three things-employment, food stamps, and social security- took literally all day to complete. I was surprised at Ted’s patience and his positive outlook on life. Our day ended when I took him to check-out, and we got him some giveaway stuff. Then I led him to his bus and said goodbye. He thanked me, and I hugged him. I wished him good luck and we said goodbye.
This experience really opened my eyes to the homeless community in Denver, and how even though these people are homeless they are still just people. I was able to see that homelessness comes in all shapes in sizes, in all races, in all genders, and in all backgrounds. Academically I was certainly able to enrich my writing in this class by having this experience. If I would have had a negative experience or I had not connected with my client it would have given me a lot less to write about, especially if I didn’t connect with my client. In addition, it is much easier to write about something when you have experienced it first-hand. Having a first-hand experience with homelessness gave me insight into the details and experiences that make up a homeless person’s situation, making it much easier to write about then if I had simply read about it. It was very eye-opening to have a client who was so close to my own age, it was definitely a reality check. Seeing some one my own age that was homeless and alone, made me think of how much I appreciate my family and life I have. Additionally, I realized that anyone at any age can be homeless. It was a frightening wake-up call, seeing that homelessness can affect, literally, anyone not just the stereotypes we build in our minds. Through this experience I was able to better understand some of what homeless people have to do in order to become not homeless. It is a long road and it requires endless amounts of patience and willingness to cooperate with government services. From food stamps to housing the number of services the government offers for the homeless are numerous. However it takes strength of character, willingness to ask for help, patience, and perseverance in order to claw one’s way out of homelessness. The most important part of getting oneself out of homelessness is plain and simple determination and I saw this on Friday. I saw hundreds of people willing to put their pride aside and ask for help from others because they were determined to change their current circumstances. Project Homeless Connect has made it clear why this type of volunteer work is important. Homelessness is a real issue in Denver, and sometimes the issue has to put directly in our faces (or on our campus) for us to realize how big of an issue it really is. On Friday I saw my friends and classmates helping people, people who as it turns out are not that different than me. I learned that homelessness is something that I should be concerned about and want to help with because it is a chronic problem not just in Denver but in the country. Everyone should be concerned about it because it affects all types of people, and one day I may find myself homeless and I would want people to be concerned about me and others like me. I saw the numbers of homeless that attended Project Homeless Connect, and it scared me. Homelessness is a huge but hidden problem that, after seeing how many people it affects, I want to do something about. In addition I learned that homeless people are people too, that they are really now different that me and that we need to get to know and not just immediately place them in categories or stereotype them. Everything I learned on Friday came from direct interaction with Ted and my direct observations of things going on around me. The experiences I had at Project Homeless Connect were significant to me not only because I directly interacted with some one who was homeless but rather because I was able to put a face with homelessness and that face was Ted.

*name has been changed