Ruben Miller, a PHD student at Loyola University who is currently working on a project dealing with homeless people and the “Ten year plan” came to talk to us today and I really had a great time.
Ruben was a great person, very energetic and it sounded like he was passionate about what he is doing.
I learned a few things about him, for example: he worked on cook county jail for five years, and he went to the University of Chicago.
He gave us a lot of valuable information that I found shocking.
He said that 80 to 90 % of the people in prison when he worked there were black.
He also told us that 50% of the prisoners are 50% below the poverty line. This information was very harsh to hear because many times people think that people who come out of prison go right back in because they go back to their same old habits as soon as they come out of prison. What most people don’t know is that the reason this people go back to prison is not so much because they are bad people, but because nobody is willing to help them make a change and help them survive so that they don’t need to resort to stealing just to be able to get by or to do something that will get them in trouble with the law.
We also discussed the topic of homelessness, which is a very controversial topic in the city of Chicago right now.
Ruben asked us, what do we think when we hear the word “welfare”, when we hear the word “homeless”?
Many of our answers were very harsh ones. After everyone said what they thought, Ruben said one thing that completely changed my mind about homeless people and made me understand them a bit more.
He said that about 60% of the homeless people he has interviewed has not completed high school.
About 50% of this people have some type of disability that impairs them from getting a job.
I think that many people judge without giving a chance, without knowing what everyone’s story is. Maybe if we took a little time to try to understand this people, we might find it easier to help them.
I really had a bad view on so many homeless people, but after today I don’t think I still have this same ideas I had about them. I used to think that whenever there was a homeless young person out begging for money, it was a waste of time even bothering to stop and listen to them, just because of the fact that you see them so young and you might think “why are they begging for money when they’re young and can easily get a job”?
Something that my teacher Liss made me understand was that sometimes we take so many things for granted, Things that we have but a homeless person wishes they had.
She told me that it might also be hard for a young person to find a job because for example, they don’t have an address like we do and that is something so little that seems so insignificant to us because we have it, but to some people things like that are so important.
The one thing that definitely bothered me so much and broke my heart is, knowing that 20% of our veterans are out there on the streets, homeless.
This I personally think is a very despicable act of our government. The fact that there are veterans of war on the streets begging for money and food is a disgusting, cowardly act of our government and I feel very strongly about that.
I have family that is and has been in the military and I certainly would not like to see them on the streets because the government decides to dump them like a bag of garbage on the street, after they have served their country and risked their lives. I have very strong feelings towards this issue, not only because I have family who serves in the military but also because I have the greatest respect for the soldiers who I believe are so brave for putting their life on the line each and every single day so that we can live in peace.
I just don’t think is right at all for the government AND the people to allow this to happen.
After wars end, the soldiers who come back do not receive the proper psychological help that they need in order for them to be able to adapt and function with society again. They see things most of us would not even dream of in our darkest nightmares and it’s a very sad thing to see the people who have fought for their country out begging for money just because of the fact that the government did not give them the help that they needed in order for them to be a member of society again who can thrive.
I think that the Ten year plans will work to some extent.
The idea of this plan is to end chronic homelessness and to try to get people to more permanent setting.
In a way I feel that the government is only doing this because it’s cheaper to have these people in homes instead of the streets, were they can get their hospital bills so high and never pay for them. Even though the government is not really doing this out of their own will, I still think it is helping the people. So whether they government does it with a good intention or not, it’s still getting benefiting the homeless.
Today has helped me change my vies on homeless people because not all homeless people is on the streets because they want to be or because they like it, most often than not the reason they are on the street is because they are not helped. If they do get some type of help, it’s a very crappy one. They might get 100 dollars a month from the government, but the government is well aware that rent is not one hundred dollars a month and people have to eat.
So I think that part of the reason why our society is so sad sometimes is because the government does not provide enough help to the people they should actually be providing the help to.
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