Housing Insecurity and Community Stratification

     One of the things that I thought about a lot while listening to our various guest speakers was the ways that I am sheltered from issues like housing insecurity and homelessness. Our guest speaker from CU at Home spoke about how their volunteering program seeks to bring people who would never otherwise meet together. This really stood out to me as a goal because I think it can be very easy for people who don't have connections to anyone experiencing housing insecurity, or experience it themselves, to become cut off from the members of their community that do. 

    It seems like many people are uncomfortable with the existence of homeless people. Things like anti-homeless architecture or the way that it is illegal to stay overnight in many public, outdoor places like parks seem to indicate that many people view homelessness as primarily an optical issue. Essentially, if we don't see homeless people then homelessness isn't a problem. The issue with this mindset is that the motivation is not to help people who are unhoused for their own sake, but predominantly to alleviate the discomfort that other people experience when they interact with them. 

    Obviously, this invisibility approach is not working to help people experiencing housing insecurity. One of the things that surprised me the most about the CU at Home presentation was the number of local resources for people experiencing housing insecurity that exist. I think the approach suggested by our guest speaker is probably the best one. If we attempt to get rid of the stratification that our community has, then there will be less division between the members of it and more people can get the community support that they need. 

Comments

  1. KathrynMarch 21, 2022 at 9:49 AM

    I totally agree! I think I tend to think of Champaign as smaller than it is, with less problems than it actually has. I totally agree with you that when we ignore entire communities of people, we're not helping anyone. Great post!

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  2. RyanMarch 23, 2022 at 2:24 PM

    I also feel very sheltered from homelessness in our community, and homelessness in general. It is not really an issue that is discussed in schools most of the time, and certainly not to the extent at which we are currently learning about it. And as you point out, there are a lot of efforts to make homelessness invisible or ignorable, which further distances housed people from the issue. I'm glad to have the opportunity to learn more about homelessness in our community from the guest speakers we've had.

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  3. Emily C.March 25, 2022 at 9:42 PM

    I agree—it seems that policy addressing homelessness is often focused not on homeless individuals, but other members of society that feel discomfort due to their existence. Many "solutions," such as anti-homeless architecture and criminalization of activities, not only don't help homeless people in any way, but erases their existence from the minds of people that could change things. The C-U at Home program does seem thoughtfully designed, and it would be valuable to experience volunteering there—I wonder if that's something we could do as part of class!

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