User:Saramcmillen

=Analytical Writing=

Personal Essay
Homelessness in Seattle

Sara McMillen

Analytical Writing

2 December 2009

For nineteen years of my life I lived in a small town in Montana where the people are few and far between, cows and deer are everywhere, and the hills are rolling and that is all that is rollin’. My town was nearly fifty miles from the interstate. Homelessness was not an issue at all in the town I grew up. If I say a hitch hiker I just assumed that he was very lost and that some truck driver would stop and give him a ride to another small town in the middle of nowhere North Dakota or even further if they got lucky. Since my town was so small no one was really allowed to be homeless. Everyone pitched in when there was tragedy, like an illness, medical bills, or even if a house burnt down. Small town folks love getting together to have a good time and if they can do it to help someone else they will do it every Friday and Saturday night.

Moving to a city like Seattle, my eyes have been opened up to a brand new way of life. There are so many homeless people everywhere around the city. There are those “bad parts of town” but I believe the homeless “live” where they end up and wherever there are resources to help them. When I lived in Montana I volunteered all the time. I helped teach younger kids basic skills they will need in the future and I helped at a second hand store. Now that I am in Seattle and I see that there is so much to do I would really like to get involved. I found some more interesting facts about the homelessness in Seattle and a whole bunch of ways to help those in need.

Seattle locals participate in a One Night Count. The one night count is to document the nature of homeless people and to build public awareness. Shelters take a count of people that they house and soup kitchens also help out in keeping track of the people they help out by providing food. Not only are the homeless kept track of in Seattle, but the count happens in the surrounding cities.

If you would like to help there are many ways to participate. You can participate in the housing for homeless by going to Olympia and talking with the legislature about what should happen and they are the ones that can really make changes and make things happen.

In order to help end homelessness in King County and the surrounding areas you can become a member or a friend of the Seattle/King County Coalition for homelessness. These are the people that are out there making the counts in the One Night Count and are participating hands-on to help out in the community. Members of this coalition also help with back-to-school. They help provide school supplies for kids in need. The membership is open to anyone especially those who specialize in social work, emergency, transportation, and housing.

Contributions can be made to help fund supplies for homeless children that are going to school. Each student is given a backpack filled with supplies that are appropriate for their age and school. The backpacks and school supplies are taken to the shelters and transitional housing programs to help the kids get a jump start on the new school year. This is mostly funded by some of the biggest corporation in the Seattle area.

The City of Seattle tries to serve homeless people by providing them an enhanced shelter to live in. Not only does this give the people a place to sleep, but it helps them get on their feet again with a job and food. When an address they can call their home, they can get jobs with no worries of being turned down for not having a permanent address. These shelters also offer medical help and education. This organization has been going for the last four years and they hope to end homelessness with a ten year plan. These places even go as far as to offer drug and alcohol abuse counseling.

It is very hard for low income families to move to a new country. A lot of people move to America to start new but have a hard time getting started and sometime end up homeless because of their language and culture barrier. There are support groups around Seattle that help with just that. These people help the new comers adjust to the new language and culture but still keep some of their traditions. The language barrier is a very big problem when it comes to the parents trying to communicate with school faculty and staff. There are people there to help translate and figure out certain situations. More than 500 immigrants seek help from the Immigrant and Refugee Family Support Program each year. This program has been up and running since 2006. The City of Seattle provides more than $300,000 each year to the non-profit organizations like the immigrant refugee program.

A lot of youth try to escape their family life for many reasons and end up on the streets. A lot of the time the teens have to leave because their family won’t accept that they are gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual. The streets are much more dangerous to them than their homes may have been. A lot of teens are sexually abuses or harassed, exposed to violence, and even rejected by their family after they leave home. The volunteers that help the younger generation of homeless people try to keep the kids going to school to get their education and even help them get a job.

There are so many different things we as a community in Seattle can do to help the homeless. It is very close to the Christmas holiday and everywhere someone is out there trying to help. When you are out shopping and thinking about everyone close to you, stop to drop a few quarters into someone’s hand. He or she will appreciate it.

Works Cited "Emergency Services & Ending Homelessness - Seattle Human Services Department." Seattle.gov – the official site of the City of Seattle - Home Page. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. . Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless - Home. Web. 29 Nov. 2009. .