Homes for Hope
Homes for Hope is a collaborative project by 11 architectural students at University of Southern California and a design foundation called MadWorkshop. It is a temporary transitional living unit that can be built fast, cheap, and free of red tape. This new approach, in response to the increasing homeless crisis and the inefficiency of the conventional homeless housing solutions, aims to house more neglected individuals in a shorter period of time.
One thing I found interesting and encouraging is that their prototype (92sgf) is about the same size as my Rubix unit. And its built cost of $25,000 is a valuable reference number for me when I do my budget analysis. However their unit does not have a bathroom, which I think is essential for an independent living.
Another thing I like about this project is that the team shares my very same belief that the design should support dignified living in terms of amenities and aesthetics, despite the tight size and budget of the unit. The stacking quality of the units offers the opportunity to make the building complexes look nicer and more blended into the neighborhoods.
Looking closer to their design, I am impressed by how the design concepts are professionally presented in their drawings.
RUBIX-Final Presentation
Here are the final presentation slides for my project! It is named RUBIX after the Rubik’s cube because I was inspired by the modular concept of the Rubik’s cube with its grid lines when I developed this prototype. I was able to complete a Rubik’s cube within 50 seconds, and I was always facinated by how the orders and the changes of this simpliest form could bring out beauty and magic. As a matter of fact, the Rubik’s cube in Chinese is called “Magic Cube”. I am hoping I am inventing something that has a magic power to help the people that I care.
New Project
During my time spent researching the ins and outs surrounding homelessness: talking with people on the streets, driving to places that offer services, and discussing people involved in the establishment of said services, I found a system that was lacking in effectiveness and efficiency. The shelters put in place were simply too ineffective to be utilized successfully by a large number of people.
One of the most memorable demonstrations of the failure of the shelter system was in Lubbock, Texas. In an attempt to recreate the experience of someone needing to find a shelter, my dad and I searched up 3 shelters around the city. After driving around for an hour and a half, we did not see a single shelter, with seemingly broken down buildings in their places. After getting back to the hotel, I did some further research, and the reviews online for one shelter were extremely concerning, stating that they had been verbally abused at the shelter, with the management even getting violent at times, throwing and smashing items. Personally, this experience put into perspective how difficult it was to utilize homelessness resources, particularly in a relatively smaller city.
Furthermore, Recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I began to wonder even more about how shelters could provide for the unhoused safely. When talking to a woman on the streets of downtown San Diego, she mentioned the discrimination from the shelters as a result of the limited availiability stemming from taking necessary social distancing measures. Allegedly, the cleaner and more ruly you looked, the more likely you were to be provided shelter. In addition, many of the unhoused choose not to stay at shelters purposefully. With a rigid schedule every day, from when one ate to bedtime, the lack of independence pushed many away from the idea.
Over the next few weeks, I will be doing a deep dive into the various ways cities are combating the issue of shelter, from housing in hotel rooms to a camp of tiny houses.
Defensive Architecture and its Hostility
The typical person may not notice the metal bars splitting benches, tiny spikes on railings, or spikes under bridges, but to someone experiencing homelessness, these details deny sleep or even just shelter from the elements. For example, this video by Vox details the implementation of “leaning bars” in New York City subway stations that prevent people from laying down to rest. The goal of these structures is to force the unhoused out of public spaces and to hide the existing poverty in a city. Instead of finding solutions to the root of the socio-economic problem that homelessness it, cities use valuable resources to keep people out of sight. Moreover, defensive architecture not only prevents the unhoused from lying down or building permanent shelters on benches or in other public spaces, it also could prevent people with disabilities, pregnant women, the elderly, and many more from fully utilizing them.
Rainy Day
A tent village in downtown San Diego during a rainstorm
Recently, there was an extremely out-of-character rainstorm in San Diego. Since we only get around 30 days of rain each year, our infrastructure is ill equipped for harsh rain and wind. In fact, some of the homes in San Diego cannot withstand such conditions. The already vulnerable unhoused population is made even more so during conditions such as these. My family and I drove downtown to provide socks and food for a homeless tent village, and we were shocked by the state of people’s shelters. During sunny days, old tents or cardboard shelters, although inadequate, seem enough to protect from the elements. Under the harsh weather however, they provided little to no shelter whatsoever. The repercussions of the relatively harsh weather exemplifies the crisis homelessness is, and should provide us with even more reason to work faster towards a better solution.
Outreach Missions Powered by The Community
When I recently ran in the mornings along La Jolla’s beautiful coastal line or walked to my favorite bakery shop after school in the afternoons, in La Jolla, the town where I live and go to school, the chance to encounter someone who sleeps on the sidewalk was sadly high. I found it so difficult for me to move my eyes away from them, not wondering about how they would survive another long December night right before Christmas.
I am happy to see missions to assist these homeless people are taking place through the town in a collaborative fashion. PATH and Father Joe’s are two NGOs who sent out outreach specialists to offer help by talking to individuals to find out their needs, being from food, clothing, and other basic needs to signing them up for sheltering housing. An organization named Humble Design, founded by local design professionals, gathered volunteers to offer a “Day of Service” to convert empty houses into nicely furnished residences for those who have been living in cars or on the streets to move in. While in my school we have my own club “Stories of the Streets” and another club “Lucky Ducklings” who are committed to make an impact on ending homelessness by offering our tokens of help, from packing a hot breakfast meal to sending socks in cold months to even just encouraging our peers to send out morning greetings whenever they come across the homeless people on the street.
The Problems with Shelters
To fully understand why we need to establish a better system to shelter the unhoused, we first need to dive into why the current one is ineffective. Homeless shelters, although obviously better than nothing, is still an extremely inefficient, expensive, and surface-level system. In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it proved to be places where the virus could easily spread.
First, homeless shelters are incapable of providing shelter to a large number of people. The disparity between the number of people in need of somewhere to sleep and the number of beds actually provided is extremely large. In Los Angeles county, the government and various organizations can offer 900 beds. However, in contrast to the 5000 people in need of shelter, is it vastly inadequate. This mainly due to the high costs of providing and maintaining facilities. In both San Francisco, California, and Austin, Texas, each individual shelter means $40,000 taxpayer dollars.
Furthermore, the conditions of the shelters themselves is in and of itself an issue. Often, shelters are converted from buildings with previous different functionalities. The locations are extremely random, and do not take the people’s whereabouts into consideration, while the layout of the building itself is not designed to cater to the people, but to minimize management and costs. For example, a lack of kitchen space and bathrooms leading to a lack of efficiency, or a few large bedrooms with many strangers stuffed into it, leading to a severe lack of privacy and sometimes even conflicts. In addition, shelters fail to provide sufficient support for the disabled, which are common in the homeless community.
Building off of the physical inadequacies of shelters, the space and environment people are subjected to can have negative social and emotional repercussions. The tight schedule and lack of privacy offers little to no independence, making people feel as if they are less than human, which is supported by the generally defensive design of the shelters. There is an evident lack of respect for the unhoused. In addition, there have been many reports of sexual and physical abuse by management, which has potential to be deeply traumatizing and degrading, accomplishing the opposite of what it had promised to do.
A solution that could potentially fix all of these issues is the concept of a tiny house. The highly individualized space allows for privacy and independence, as well as social distancing during a time like the current pandemic. The costs of implementing this system is significantly cut down with its ability to be prefabricated, and its flexibility allows it to be moved around and transported with relative ease, overcoming the zoning issues.
An Introduction to Hafsa Kaka
San Diego mayor Todd Gloria has recently hired a new Director of Homeless Strategies and Solutions, Hafsa Kaka. In my post last week, I mentioned the programs she is leading to improve resources for those battling addiction among the unhoused. In this post, I will be introducing you to her and her background!
Hafsa Kaka has a BAs in both psychology and criminology from the University of California, Irvine, and a Masters in social work from the University of Minnesota. She has over 15 years of experience working on homelessness, mental health, and social services in general for various cities such as Minnesota, Los Angeles, and most recently, Riverside. Experiences with homelessness solutions in many cities throughout neighbouring counties offered her a better understanding of homelessness in Southern California, and equipped her with the knowledge on how to better combat homelessness in a city such as San Diego, which also presents itself as a bigger challenge due to the large unhoused population.
As a female immigrant of color, Kaka hopes that she can address the issue of homelessness through a lens of equity, and create a multitude of specialized services that tackle the homelessness crisis with a sense of empathy and compassion.
Kaka’s upcoming project will involve “Safe Haven” shelters, which aims to help people on their paths to sobriety. With Kaka’s arrival, San Diego seems to be headed down a more active road combating homelessness as a city.
A Conversation with Emily Tianshi
Recently, I had the chance to speak with Emily Tianshi, who interned with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s office over the summer. Emily is going to be attending Stanford University in the fall. Her job at the mayor office involves answering emails and calls, which puts her in direct contact with the homeless, or with people calling about the homeless situations around San Diego.
Our conversation gave me more insight into the homelessness systems and services San Diego is implementing than any article that may be floating around the depths of the internet. Mainly, I learned that the difficulty in creating new policy regarding homelessness was the idea that the unhoused cannot be immune to the law. Homelessness in itself is not a crime, but other, more specific things such as trespassing are.
There have been many efforts to combat homelessness in the city. The city of San Diego partners with various nonprofits to create a month-long outreach program over the summer of 2021. They provided emotional support and physically sheltered hundreds of people with this service. The city will be initiating part 2 of this program this month, called “Safe Haven Shelters.” This is an attempt to reach those struggling with addiction, providing not only shelter, but also doctors, therapists, and emotional support in general. There will also be a system implemented that allows an individual to show up intoxicated, which will reach many more in need of support.
The city is also working on creating sheltering solutions for those with particular needs. For example, one woman who had been the victim of domestic abuse was not comfortable living in a conventional shelter with others. She was moved into an individual hotel room in order to make her feel more comfortable while getting back on her feet. The city is working on making single-person housing such as this more widespread.
There seems to be major reason for this sudden action in combating homelessness is Hafsa Kaka, the new Director of Homelessness Strategies and Solutions in San Diego. She is working on prioritizing addiction as a major factor in the homelessness issue. There is so much exciting progress being made, and all of us as a city are very interested in seeing what’s next on this road to crushing homelessness!
Find Your Paradise
This man sits outside the window of a Neiman Marcus on Michigan Avenue (dubbed the “Magnificent Mile”) in Chicago, Illinois. While this particular street in Chicago serves as a destination for the rich to indulge in shopping, fine dining, and the likes, the area is also densely populated by the unhoused. Many reviews online contain complaints about the amount of people on the streets, with some labelling them as “fake homeless” or “beggars” that “ruin the entire experience”. These reviews online, coupled with the way we noticed the unhoused were being treated, perfectly demonstrates how the negative stigma surrounding homelessness is extended to this city and particular neighborhood. The sign displayed in the window says “find your paradise”, while so many people ironically experience the complete opposite mere feet away. This image encapsulates the stark contrast between brands exemplifying luxury consumerism for the wealthy in America versus the grim reality for half a million of its less fortunate population.
Johnny’s Story
I was driving through Chicago a month ago when my parents and I pulled into a parking lot. There, we saw a man clad in a dark blue shirt, long baggy jeans, and a baseball cap, sitting in the corner on a plastic milk crate. When he said good afternoon to us, in the voice of a man who still had hope, we sat down with him and introduced ourselves.
His name was Johnny Lloyd, and he had been homeless for 4 years. He was holding a sign that said, “homeless, in need of a prayer.” We spoke with Johnny about his life story and experiences on the streets. His story stemmed from a long history of abuse and depression; His father was heavily abusive when he was a child, and his high-school sweetheart had passed in 2017 on the delivery table, his mother the year after. At this point in our conversation, I could see the tears begin to well up in his eyes. We started talking about his experiences on the streets, and Johnny mentioned that his identification and belongings had all been stolen while he was away from his tent during the day. When we asked him about the resources the city offered him, he mentioned his reluctance to stay at a city-run shelter, mentioning bed bugs and overpopulation. He also mentioned the dehumanizing treatment the people of the city of Chicago have given him and others in similar circumstances. He cited people automatically assuming him to be a drug addict, not responding when he simply says hello, or dragging their kids off the sidewalk and into the street to actively get as physically far away from him as possible. Johnny’s story seems to parallel that of many unhoused people. Many conversations with the unhoused seem to produce the same notions of feeling invisible, unwanted, and unloved, and this is a major issue that often goes overlooked in the pursuit of a solution to the nationwide crisis of homelessness.
Mysterious Cart Lady
A wrinkled bag of bagels in hand and bottles of blue gatorade in a tote, my brother and I headed to downtown San Diego last Sunday. After offering food to a lady who had stuffed masks into her ears to block out the noise, as well as a man who did not want a bagel, we turned the corner to find a woman dusting off a North Face-esque jacket, and standing next to a cart of clothing, “one dollar jacket! You want?” Unfortunately, we did not have money on us, so we could not purchase said fancy jacket. She looked to be around sixty, on the stout side, and her skin was quite visibly wrinkled. She had a heavy Hispanic accent, yet the emotion seeping through her voice was clear as though there was no language barrier. When we offered her a bagel, and asked to hear her story, a flood-like tale was presented to us.
She immediately began with how she had been waiting for her social security and official documentation for forty-nine years. She excitedly informed us about an upcoming meeting with a pro-bono immigration lawyer she had been waiting for for years. She complained about how impossible it was to get a job without documentation; the only way she could make some money was by recycling cans and bottles, and volunteering at the Salvation Army for tips. In addition, the Salvation Army would offer her whatever unwanted clothing they had, and she sold them for additional profit; the one dollar jacket was an example of this. She mentioned that she had been living on the streets for twenty years, after not being able to pay her rent due to her lack of job prospects. She also mentioned her 3 sons, one of whom is disabled.
At this point in our conversation, she started tearing up, talking about how she could not receive proper medical treatment due to her lack of social security. She worried about her sons, about who would take care of them, and if she was gone one day, if they would even know. When we asked her about the resources available to her, she said that she eats at the church near where we found her, but often the questionable food would make her sick. Regarding shelters, she mentioned that, due to COVID-19, there is a very limited amount of people who are allowed access to the facilities, and that they show very serious bias and favoritism when it came to the type of people they chose to allow. For example, if the person asking to stay there for the night looked dirty, or if they looked like they would cause trouble, they would say that the shelter was full regardless of capacity. When we asked her if we could take a picture of her, she declined, saying that her ex-husband, who had abused her in the past, would find her and kill her. We were flabbergasted that she could talk about something so serious and traumatizing with such nonchalance. While we were distracted by a man asking for a gatorade, she left, slipping away around the corner of a building with her cartof clothing. We never managed to ask her her name. We were never given the chance to say goodbye, or even thank her for her insight.
Our conversation with this mystery woman helped me realize the impacts documentation, or a lack thereof, can change the way one lives. She left her home with her young children to escape abuse, yet all she found in America, a land symbolizing opportunity and freedom, was the coldness of the streets. Although she evidently saw the pro bono lawyers that were offered to her as a beacon of hope, excitedly coming back to this meeting time and time again in our conversation, anyone with a basic understanding of immigration law knows that there is probably little help that could be offered. Mysterious cart lady’s story adds to the element of immigration in the larger problem of homelessness in America. So many people who had once looked at this country as a glimmer of light in an otherwise dreary world only to be let down by the very people who had once offered boundless opportunity.
Welcome to Stories of the Streets
I vividly remember that one San Francisco night in the Summer of 2013. Matilda had captured our hearts for the past 2 hours, and it was time to walk the 5 blocks back to the hotel. The night was eerily still, the heat of the summer clinging to our clothes. My mom’s grip on my hand got tighter, and I could sense the excitement of the musical leave her mind, soon replaced by an obvious anxiety. She kept saying how it was a lapse in judgement to be walking on these streets so late. I didn’t feel it yet, but soon I would be informed that this paranoia was caused by the rows and rows of huddled silhouettes on the sidewalk. Thinking about my mom’s reaction and her past advice for me to stay away from the homeless, my fear and anxiety set in too. We started to run, and our footsteps echoed into the night. When we got back to the hotel room, I asked my mom about where they appeared from, as they were nowhere to be seen during the day. Although I had always been taught to stay away from figures crouching in the shadows, to turn my head away, walk a little faster, hold my bags a little tighter. My childish naïveté immediately created a picture of the figures on the streets: alcoholics, addicted to drugs, lazy, bad people.
It was not until years later that the image of the unhoused that had been painted in my head began to deteriorate. I was doing a presentation on the #MeToo project in 7th grade when I stumbled upon the stories of the homeless women who ended up on the streets after years of abuse. Reading more into these powerful and beautiful women’s lives, I started to realize that they were not the dangerous threats I had always assumed them to be. They were people with stories worth telling, and they were people who deserved opportunities at a better life. Intrigued by their lives, I dug further into the stories of individuals on the streets, and came to find that my assumptions about them were motivated by a long standing societal stigma surrounding the issue. And although I no longer carry these prejudices, these terrible stigmas still subconsciously exist in the minds of many. Those who consider the man sitting on the corner, the woman holding a sign on that bench, and the rows of people lining the streets of metropolitan cities to be mere hindrances to the aesthetics and safety of a city, a jab at the real estate value, a bad review online. They have chosen to see them as their idea of the homeless, and not a human with a story, and a life worth living to their fullest potential. Not only have I come to better understand homelessness as an issue, I have also come to realize that this stigma surrounding homelessness is what prevents the existence of better resources for them. I want to break down this stigma by telling the stories of the individuals who call the streets their home.
Welcome to Stories of the Streets.