Week 01 - Introductions

Last Wednesday was my first week with at the shelter. It was incredibly quiet when I first arrived, no homeless were yet even visible in the area, though it was dark and may have been misleading. We entered into the church and to the kitchen where my wife and I met with 3 volunteer girls, a church leader managing the kitchen, and a director from Union Gospel Mission.  I then met one more volunteer that was a UGM (Union Gospel Mission) employee in charge of the door for the night. That made for a total of 6 volunteers & 2 staff to sustain the 20-bed shelter in that day. Another church volunteer had partnered to coordinate volunteers into the shelters on different days in a spreadsheet that she's maintaining throughout the event.

I was in charge of the meal for the week, which can be a daunting task for an individual, but not so much for a group. Fortunately, all the volunteers are there to help cook and distribute the food. We planned a meal of spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and water for a drink. Another group had donated a pan of mashed potatoes wit gravy. We quickly learned that we had forgotten desert and that the homeless would've preferred to have that. The staff and/or kitchen master had already set up coffee. We prepared food for approximately 30 minutes until people started to arrive. It remained modestly quiet to this point. Some men came in an went to sleep on their beds, not concerned about getting a plate of food. The distribution was fairly orderly & few complaints were given. Some compliments were given, particularly to the mashed potatoes. The meal had cost me approximately $100 total, or about $5 / person we had estimated for. The cooking of the food went quite smoothly and did not pose many problems.

Once everyone was eating, I spent some time speaking with the paid employee from UGM that was in charge of the door. He keeps track of who shows up or doesn't in an excel spreadsheet and sign-in sheet everyday. He send the sheet to a UGM database, where it is compiled with other data. His desk was by the door, which locked after a certain time period. He also had hand sanitizer & a basket of various supplies that people had left or that he had to hand out. Behind him in an office was his boss, checking in to see how the shelter was going. On the sign in sheet, only 10 had signed in and only 18 names had been filled. The sheet left space for up to 22 "guests" and had a notes section at the end of the page. The only note on the sheet this night (Nov. 25) was of a male who had called in to say he would be staying in Olympia for the night. In the bottom right were boxes to fill in on # of men sheltered, meals served breakfast, and meals served dinner. Neither had information in during the time I was meeting with him.

I spent time meeting the men of the shelter, there were 6 men that I had conversations with and got to know by name: Byron, Cedric, Tim, Tyler,  Ron, and another Tim. I asked a bit about their day, the food, and where they were from. They were all friendly and calm. One man seemed to mutter after sentences and may have had some mental illness, everyone else came across fairly normal. Another man was quite talkative and spent a good deal of time discussing history, asking various questions. First he talked about the history of New York City, then the history of Seattle. I didn't check over his facts but they did seem to follow my shallow understandings of Seattle's history. They asked about the universitties that girl volunteers went to, the church they were staying at and my dogs. Toward the end of the evening, they thanked us for the meal and said we offered good conversation. We arrived at the shelter at 7:00 pm and headed home around 9:30 pm. Grocery planning and shopping accumulated approximately 30 minutes of planning, for a total time investment of 3 hours.


Lessons Learned / Things to Consider

1. Carrots might be too hard for people with bad teeth 
2. Many homeless expected or preferred desserts

A study of the Homeless Experience

Homelessness is a serious problem in Seattle. Earlier this year it concluded a 10 year initiative to end homelessness, only to find that it's problem had grown, not shrunk, let alone"ended." I am new to the Seattle, Pacific Northwest, and research. I am, however, in a position to collect and develop a body of data about a small portion of the homeless in Seattle. The shelter I will be volunteering in weekly has 20 beds for homeless men. It is located in the Fremont District and is run by Union Gospel Mission inside of a church building.

20 homeless is a small sample of a larger segment. Some estimates have shown numbers as high as 10,000 homeless in the Seattle area. That means my sample accounts for just 1/500 or .2% of the entire population. It has other limitations in that it only contains males, is geographically in one district, and is a temporary shelter space until April, thus limiting my time scope. Even further, I will be going only 1 time / week for approximately 12-15 weeks. The 20 men in the shelter may change. According to one of the volunteers of the shelter, approximately 94 men came through the location last year, so the people I meet with may be changing over time.

So that's what I am limited by. With that said, I believe there is an opportunity to study this segment and evaluate some of the issues in Seattle's housing system. I hope to conduct a contextual inquiry with as many of the 20 men in the temporary shelter as possible. I hope to have recurring interactions with some of the men that find this to be there home in the early parts of 2016. I will be using the practices outlined in Karen Holtzblatt's book on contextual design,  as my design is to describe the homeless system as it exists today and suggest systemic interventions that should improve measurable outcomes.

I am not committing to end homelessness, however, or even reduce it. Instead, my research objective will be to better understand and construct models of the Seattle homeless from the perspective of this population. Findings from this qualitative research can be contrasted with existing research that has been done on the homeless population. I will be organizing and conducting a literature review, studying the issues of homelessness in Seattle, occasionally reaching more broadly to examine homelessness in other areas.

Right now, I am in the early stages of planning this research project, while simultaneously studying qualitative & social research methods, principles, and practices. I am seeking literature sources, feedback, and support for the initiative. At the moment, no funding is needed, just time and commitment on my part. I have ethical responsibilities to keep all individuals involved privacy rights. This will limit my ability to gather data completely, and therefore, I do not expect to produce a completely clean data set. Instead, I hope to create unbiased information available from those are facing homelessness today. Any advice, support or comments that help progress that are greatly accepted.

More to come, thank you,