Outreach

Tonight was my first formal experience with homeless outreach. I've been carrying food for the poor for some time now to cover chance meetings, but apart from pulling quick u-turns to feed a man on the other side of the street, I haven't ever engaged in deliberate service.

Until tonight. Stand Up For Kids is an outreach organization here in the Phoenix area (national organization, actually) whose mission is to provide food, clothing, and other life essentials along with further information and positive relationships. I was introduced to the organization through a student in public speaking.

The organization is in the process of setting up a youth house to increase its ability to serve these kids. Now, law prohibits actually housing homeless under 18 (more on this odd convergence of laws later). But the purpose of this house is to provide the other elements of the home during daylight hours. Its a place to shower, hang out, cook meals, access the food and clothing bank, check the internet... etc.

Outreach for tonight in Phoenix is to meet at the Youth House. I get there about twenty minutes early. I call the outreach lead to make sure I'm in the right place. I am. So I wait, idly picking at white flakes of paint barely hanging onto the building. I hope Stand Up For Kids is renting it for a good price. Should I really be piking at the paint? No. Guess I'll have to paint it. I spend a few minutes wondering how to get paint donated.

The other two people on outreach show. The lead, a woman in her early thirties two months pregnant with her second child, has been doing this for four years. The other woman, in her early sixties with two children a little younger than me, has been at it for a year.

We pack the leads car with supplies (the van we usually use is unregistered) and drive around to the local homeless teenage hang outs. No luck. My companions say its hard to keep up, because as soon as the teens really settle into a place, the cops come and move them on. Don't I know how that works.

So its off to the shelters. Won't find any under 18 year olds, but some 18 to 21, likely. We drive past a pretty rough place my companions call "The Overflow" on our way to CASS (Central Arizona Shelter Service). CASS is a extensive facility that provides lots of different resources and represents the coalition of many different homeless organizations. It's a pretty impressive collaboration.

And so it begins. Some of the youth are pretty ordinary. Maybe their clothes are a bit unwashed, but pretty unnoticable. In a group of teens it would be pretty hard to pick them out. As I said, some of them are normal. Others have either emotional or developmental issues. When I first meet any of them, its all shields. There's this jaded savvy persona that gets performed. A toughness, not unlike the toughness I remember from some of my kids in my youth program. Its the non-verbal "Nobody loves me but I don't give a damn."

Anyway, I remember a particular exchange between two 21 year olds. The one has a job lined up, but doesn't have identification. So he needs his birth certificate. The second guy warns the first that most of those birth certificate websites are trying to steal your identity and set up credit cards in your name. The first says he knows, and that while he thinks this site is legit, he's gonna check his credit in a few days to make sure no body opened up an account. I find it both sad and ironic that a 21 year old homeless youth doesn't have enough of an identity to get a drivers license or a job, but still has to worry about his identity getting stolen.

Some of the youth are inspiring. One young woman we spoke to had just gotten into school after getting her GED and was now working as a telemarketer. At the same time, another is telling about her plans to move to Philly. She's seven months pregnant, and she wants to be homeless in Philadelphia in February. Not what I'd call a solid plan.

Maybe outreach to homeless is less radical than I thought. I guess it depends on the night.