Over the last few months, I have learned a lot about homelessness. Yet it’s still hard to say whether  I am satisfied or not with what I have accomplished. Sure I am proud of all the knowledge I have picked up on the road of knowing more about the situation of the homeless, but for my agent of change I couldn’t really accomplish what I had envisioned. It’s not over yet though because this was my first shot of taking action to better make the situation for the homeless. Only because the project ends here doesn’t mean I will stop trying to make a change. I have grown not only in knowledge but as a person as well. I remember back in my first slate blog post mostly focused on the misconceptions about homeless people. How they are seen as lazy, drug addicts, and people who take advantage of their situation. I focused only on how they were viewed, treated, and reasons why they were in the situation they were in. In my second blog post I worked on researching more about the truth of why people go homeless, why homeless people don’t go to shelters, and with this information I was able to come up with my own definition of what being homeless truly is. For this blog post I focused more on what has been done or is currently being done to end homelessness and what I did to make a change about the homeless situation.

I am not the only one who wants to make change for the homeless people. Other groups of people have been working on better making the situation so that the situation of being homeless can end. In 2004, a group of homeless advocates in San Francisco tried to test out something that could possibly help homeless people with most of their needs. They rented a local convention hall and made social services provide tables and they would have shoes, clothes, free food, medical treatment of any kind (including mental illnesses), information about short and long term housing programs in the city, free phone calls, etc. for the homeless people. This program also made homeless people feel safe because the people volunteering would protect their belongings. This act helped homeless people have an opportunity to change their life because they now have the most important things they need and with the short and long housing info, you should be able to come to an agreement to a housing fund with the government. These events bring people from the community in because a lot of people donate clothes they don’t need and donate money.

https://www.va.gov/health/NewsFeatures/2013/August/300-Million-to-Help-End-Veteran-Homelessness.asp

I decided to go on with this because since I ran out of options, helping the people who need it would be the best choice for me at this point, also I wanted to inform others of the truth behind the homeless. When I was helping people and saw my friends helping people I had this feeling of happiness that filled my heart. I felt like there was hope in making people’s eyes open and see reality.  I was effective in making a change because I informed others more about the truth of homeless people and I helped homeless people in the streets by giving them food money and telling them that they shouldn’t feel bad because good things will head their way if they do good things for others. I gave them positive vibes and made them feel better and that they are humans and that they don’t need to feel lower than anyone else because they are just as good as anyone else.

I don’t plan to stop here, I want to use this as a step closer to make a bigger impact. My goal is to create an event where there will be food and I will use the money raise to give to a homeless shelter so that they can help get medical care and other important necessities. The project changed the perspective of my life. It taught me to value my life more because I have what others don’t have and it proves that life could change in a matter of seconds. The people I met in my journey to find the truth behind homeless people taught me that family is the reason they were able to bring themselves back and that family and friends are the answer to end homelessness. It taught me stuff about myself that i didn’t think I had. I would always think I would be a tough guy and that I didn’t really have a soft spot. This wasn’t the case when I learned about people stories and how their relationships with family changed. Most of the stories I learned about either talked about how their family left them or how their mothers were their inspirations to bring themselves back up. I feel like I could have found a better way to get my message across about getting to know someone before you judge them. This is only a step closer to change because it won’t end until we take action. We the people need to help others by creating fundraisers to create a shelter where everyone is welcome and it would help rehabilitate those with mental illnesses. We are the start of change.

One grows when they finally see reality. I have done a lot of research and have been  coming up with my solution to better make the situation for the homeless. Through my research I have seen things that have given me a whole different perspective of how I see the homeless now since my Slate Blog #1. In Slate Blog #1 I talked mostly focused on the misconceptions about homeless people. How they are seen as lazy, drug addicts, and people who take advantage of their situation. I focused only on how they were viewed, treated, and reasons why they were in the situation they were in. Never did I focus on how their life was like before they came into the situation they are in. I never mentioned the true definition of homelessness for me. Most people would think about why the homeless  didn’t they just go to homeless shelters instead of staying outside. I was no different from these people. I have better prepared myself by making myself more opened minded and even went out to find information from a person who has indeed experienced homelessness. I researched more about the reasons why people go homeless and even went deeper with it. I also found possible reasons why people don’t go and stay in homeless shelters. With the information I have gathered I came up with my own definition of what it means to be homeless.

What does it mean to be homeless? For me being homeless isn’t just not having a place to live, but you can also be considered homeless if you have a place to live but you can’t really keep up with the rent or you can maintain yourself or your family, also fleeing from domestic violence can be considered homelessness. For me this is what it means to be homeless, for others there’s more to it. After you see what I have gathered here, you can up with your own definition of being truly homeless. In Slate Blog #1 I got most of my info from a site that was reliable but it was updated in 2015, I recently got new information from a site that was recently updated in 2017. The site was a pdf file of The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development, it gave me a lot of updated facts in 2017 about the homeless. When going through it I found out that 553,742 people were experiencing homelessness in the U.S, 65% of the people that were homeless were in shelters or had housing support while the other 35% were unsheltered. 61% of the homeless are men while 39% were women. Race is something that shocks many of us because each race is given a stereotype and many believe them, people believe that hispanics and blacks are more prone to becoming homeless but in reality whites have a higher chance of becoming homeless. 47% of the homeless population is white, 41% are black, 22% are latino or hispanic and 7% identified as multiracial.

For many of us when we hear the word homeless we think of someone lazy and is a drug addict who just doesn’t want to work and keep things easy for themselves. The truth is that this isn’t the case for many of the homeless. It’s different from what we hear and it’s hard when you are in this situation and you have to change your life around. To get a better perspective i went to the Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission and got the chance to interview Eric who was homeless and now he helps other homeless people turn their lives around. This homeless shelter is located in 1010, 302 N 13th St, Philadelphia, PA 19107. In this interview I wanted to get a better insight from someone who was homeless to understand the truth of how some people become homeless and how their experience was. I wanted to hear Eric’s opinion of how he feels about the stereotypes about the homeless and what he would do to change this problem. Of course, before I asked him these questions I had to first hear his story. This is the document of my questions.

My inquiry was an interview and my questions were answered in a very detail way by Eric because I could see what he said and feel what he felt. Eric helped me better inform me about the homeless by telling me about how he got in the situation of being homeless, telling me his experience, and how he got out of that situation. He proved my point of the misconception of homeless people because they are people who were just in the hard times in life, some got beaten down by life, and others picked themselves up.

There is homeless people that are in the street because of mental illnesses. These are the people that need a lot of support, about 25% of the homeless population suffer from mental illnesses. You may be asking yourself, why didn’t they just get support when they were with their friends and families? The reason is that they lose their communication with friends and family because of their delusional thinking. When this happens they are left all alone and unable to take good care of themselves because they lack sustainability of employment. Many others have mental illnesses after they become homeless, that is because the fact that they are in the situation that they are in stresses them, encourages anxiety, causes fear, depression, causes them to sleep less, and this eventually leads up to drug abuse. It’s sad but the truth is that people with mental illnesses experience homelessness for a longer time when compared with someone who doesn’t suffer from mental illnesses. Domestic violence is the reason 75% of women experiencing homeless have mental illnesses. Hospitals and prisons have a big role of why there’s people with mental illnesses in the streets because they release them into the streets knowing their situation and that many of these people don’t have family to go to.

There’s many homeless people in the streets and many of us just wonder to ourselves, why don’t they just go to a homeless shelter? The truth is there’s reasons why many homeless people don’t go to shelters and one of them is that many homeless people can’t bring their best pals around with them, meaning there is no pets allowed in the homeless shelters because of the lack of resources. Many homeless people don’t want to give away their best friend who has been loyal to them.

Many homeless people don’t go to shelters to avoid giving their best friend away.

Another reason is because homeless shelters deny the entry to people who suffer from mental illnesses because they can be a threat to others. I believe that they should be allowed in because all they need is somebody to talk to and what better people than the people who are experiencing the same problem these people with mental illnesses are experiencing. Many people also don’t go to homeless shelters because they don’t let people with parasites, lice, and bedbugs because they can spread and ruin the shelter. Others don’t go at the fear that they could be raped or assaulted.

Many people are afraid of going to shelters because they could be raped or assaulted.

Some people know that they have a disease that can easily spread and they decide to stay away from shelters to not spread it and they can’t even get in the shelters because they deny entry to people with diseases. A very high reason why people don’t go to shelters because they can’t be helped with their drug abuse. The main reason why people don’t go to shelters is because of the lack of available beds. There is many more reasons why people don’t go to shelters but you can check more out at this site (where I got my information). Many of the homeless people are in shelters and the people with mental illnesses and drug addictions are left in the streets and this is what caused the stereotypes of homeless people because that’s all we get to see.

Now that I have done some research I can give my opinion on how I truly see the homeless. I believe that the homeless are people who were beaten down by life and that does who stay homeless haven’t necessarily given up but they don't feel motivated because they are alone. But, for the people that picked themselves up, they were motivated at the fact that they wanted to help their family, prove people wrong about them, or both. There’s many things I still wonder about, I wonder If with the help of others, we will be able to end poverty? For Slate Post #3 for change, I am thinking about going out to the streets and telling all the homeless people I see that they aren’t alone and that me, others, and god support them. I will give them food and money so that they can start their life again. They don’t need much support, they just need a boost. One only cannot make change but one and others can.

Bibliography

The Truth

http://theapopkavoice.com/over-2000-determined-homeless-central-florida/

Although I was told to make a project where I would research on a specific topic of one of the worlds problems and create my feasible solution. I feel as though I take this project as a step closer to my goal in this world. My goal is to create peace in this world and what better way to do that by starting to solve one problem at a time. I will start by helping the homeless so that they can get their life together and help others in need like they have helped them. I chose the topic about the homeless because I believe that there is a misconception about the homeless because they are commonly seen as lazy, drug addicts, and people who take advantage of their situation. I can’t stand the fact that people nowadays point out the problems of this world and complain, but they don’t want to do anything about it. Sure the homeless need support but what they really need is for people like us to motivate them so that they can get their life back together.  They will be motivated because they will feel like they are wanted in this world and people are truly motivated when people trust them to become better. Based on my experience in the U.S and other countries, most of the unfortunate always appreciate what they get. When i was in Colombia, I noticed that the less fortunate wanted attention more than valuables. This brought me to the idea that we people need to connect with others because we need love and that is the only thing that will keep us motivated to keep moving forward.

People don’t know the truth behind homeless people. Most homeless people served in the military and when they retired, they were left with nothing. Over 57,00 homeless people are retired veterans and only 60% of them are in shelters, the rest are out in the streets. People who gave their lives to serve one’s country should not be living in the streets, they should be given the help they need by the government and not forgotten.  Others suffer from mental illnesses and need help, we could help these people by providing them the assistance they need. We the people need to take action because it is evident that our government never cared about truly coming up with a solution of themselves to end this problem. They want to just ignore this problem by amending laws to suppodsley help themselves and the non-homeless people. Not only that but about 138,000 homeless people are kids under the age of 18. This says a lot because this can affect the future generation by not given them the education they need, not letting them experience what it feels like interacting with different people, and it can lead to very long and sad depression problems. Based on what I’ve read, it seems that the main reason people go homeless is because they can’t find an affordable place to live. This mostly means that people don’t have enough money to pay monthly for a house. This can be because of the job they have, being robbed, recently getting out of jail. Being in jail and then being released is also a main reason people go homeless. When they start their life again they are left with nothing and have no support. Some were abandoned by their families, some never had family, some were seperated, and some were already homeless before they went to jail. Many others go homeless not only because they don’t have family members or money, but because of physical abuse. Sadly, 90% of women go homeless because of domestic violence.

https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/10-life-changing-lessons-that-helping-homeless-people-taught-me/

This is a problem because the homeless isn’t only one problem but there are other problems that affiliate with being homeless. We need to understand that we can’t alienate the homeless because just like most of us, they have dreams and aspirations. They need to stop being seen as animals and start being seen as people like us because that’s what they are. This is only the start of my journey. I will continue to grow my knowledge so I can build a better understanding of the homeless. With the facts that I discovered my idea about the homeless has changed dramatically. At first I knew that the homeless were different from what people said but I didn’t really care about the world I lived in, I just had a closed mindset. I became more open minded before I started researching this topic but my idea on the homeless is now that, they need support from us just like we need support from others and that they worry mostly about being affiliated with others more than the money. They aren’t selfish. I wonder that if we all worked together to help others, would the homeless finally live the life they dreamed about? Will our government stop us yet again from achieving true peace? Since this is only the start, I hope to learn more about the homeless stories and how I can help them feel wanted and motivate them. And when helping others, it’s not so much about how much you get but about how much you give.

Bibliography

https://www.lllcf.org/program/help-the-homeless/

In this project I worked with Karima  and we decided to make the cover the way it looks because we wanted to symbolize important parts of the play. We were inspired at the fact that the best playbills always have one of the important parts of the play as a cover page.We put a bloody sword through a crown and that symbolizes one of the most important parts of the play which is when Macbeth killed King Duncan and took over the kingdom. We also chose to put a crown because the crown symbolized  Macbeth's goal in doing all the crimes he did. Our rough draft had too much design (even though it was great) but we thought about it and came to understand that too much design, although it symbolizes a lot of stuff, it should be basic enough to tell a big part without giving too much infor of the play. The purpose of this project was to chose what project you wanted to do and we chose to do a playbill because me and Karima decided that a playbill would suit us perfectly. We chose to have play be performed at the Globe Theater because it's Shakespeare's theater and since Macbeth was written by Shakespeare's then we might as well have it be performed in his theater.

Summary

The play Macbeth is about,  A loyal man who fought under the king of Scotland named King Duncan, life turned around. This man was known as Macbeth. He became the opposite of what he was after 3 witches had given him and his friend Banquo prophecies that fortelled their future. Hearing that Macbeth would be king gave Macbeth a greed for power. After telling his wife the prophecies given to him, they decide to kill the king to have the power for their own. They take over the kingdom but, can they maintain it for long?

Characters Costumes

In the play Macbeth we will have characters wear amazing costumes that will make them look like the character they are meant to be. Macbeth at the start as a warrior will have a cape and grey armour with some leather boats. He will have his sword on the side. When he becomes the king Macbeth will wear a crown and long heavy clothing with the color of black because the black represents the bad king he is because of the way he achieved his position. Lady Macbeth will wear a dark color grown, since growns we're common use for the queens. The color of the grown would be black as well because she was the reason Macbeth did what he did. Since Banquo is a soldier he will wear grey armour and some leather boots, black pants, and will have his sword at the side of him. King Duncan will wear a crown, armour, and a cape of the color bright red. His cape will be bright red because the bright red will represent King Duncan's death. MacDuff will wear gey armour, black pants, leather boots, and will have his sword on the side. Macduff will wear this because since he's one of the thanes, he is like Macbeth right man and is a soldier. The three witches will wear black robes and will be bare foot because since they are witches they have to be spooky and scary looking. Malcolm and Donalbain will wear green robes and will have a sword on the side of them. The reason I say that they will wear green robes is because since they are princes they have to look fancy but not too fancy to which they look scary, they have to look nice.

Casting

Jason Statham will play Macbeth because Jason Statham is known for playing as the bad guy.

Dwayne Johnson will play as Macduff because he is always the hero who creates justice.

Paul Walker will play Banquo because he is a good friend and died.

Beyonce will play as Lady Macduff because she’s a lady and she is liked by everyone.

Kevin Hart will play as King Duncan because he is a likeable guy and everyone thinks he's great.

Vin Diesel will play as Fleance because he skilled and he escapes from places all the time and doesn’t get caught.

Adam Sandler will play as Malcolm because he acts like a coward but at the end he redeems himself.

Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, and Ben Stiller will play as the three witches because they are weird.

Will Smith is Young Siward because he is a character who has to build up their life again.

Tom Hanks will play as Donalbain because he has a good voice for someone who seems afraid.

Mark Strong will play as the Third Murder because he is an evil guy.

Jennifer Lawrence is Lady Macduff because she is nice and likable.