Stories Matter

Approximately 1.53 billion people worldwide live in inadequate shelter, with Nigeria and India having the largest homeless populations. Homelessness can be both a cause and consequence of having a criminal record. Many homeless people are arrested for basic activities like sleeping in public, leading to a cycle of poverty and incarceration. Homelessness can have a significant impact on mental health, causing feelings of anxiety, sadness, and hopelessness. The system should provide more support like affordable housing, food assistance, and job training. Society should not judge homeless individuals but offer help and resources. As a society, we can provide affordable housing, job training, education, mental health services, and basic necessities to support homeless individuals in rebuilding their lives. We should also work to break down stereotypes and advocate for policies addressing poverty and discrimination. Children experiencing homelessness are more likely to face chronic diseases 1.53 billion people around the world live in inadequate shelter with Nigeria and India being the two most largest countries with a population of homeless people. Sadly, homelessness can be both a cause and consequence of having a criminal record. According to the Seattle Anxiety, more than 25% of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. report being arrested for activities like loitering, sitting, lying down, or sleeping in public. Thousands of homeless people are being jailed simply because they are poor. This is a big injustice that needs to be looked at because they have limited access to any resources that will take them in or shelter. We are going to dive in deeper to the causes of homelessness. Today I will be interviewing my father, Apollo Wandera, who has a Ph.D. in psychology and he specifically focuses on behavioral aspects of different living conditions that can affect the cognitive development of the brain. He can also provide information because he is a person who has gone from living in a home to them being on the street from a young age. So that provides some personal experience too. Has there been a time when you have experienced homelessness? How did that affect you mentally? Yes, I have experienced a lot of homelessness, especially when I was in Uganda, Africa. I went through a very hard time without home. This experience affected my mental health deeply. I didn't know where I would sleep or how I would get my next meal, which made me feel very worried and unsure about my future. I struggled every day to find food and a place to live or to stay, which made it hard to think about anything else. I felt like I was always in crisis and didn't have any stability or security. This took a big toll on my mental health and I often felt anxious, sad, and overwhelmed. It was hard to see a way out of this situation, but I tried to stay positive and look for a solution. How can homelessness affect people mentally? Well, homelessness can affect a big impact on individuals' mental health. For example, when someone is homeless or people are homeless, they often don't know where they will sleep or how they will get their next meal. It can make them feel worried, anxious, and stressed all the time. For my experience, especially when I was in Africa, I used to look sad. I used to feel very sad and very depressed, like I've lost my mind. It is like being in a constant crisis and it is hard to think about anything else. Homelessness can make it difficult to feel stable and insecure, which is very important. It can also make it hard focusing, especially when you are a student, you don't really focus in school, you cannot make your own decisions, you are very worried. You can imagine not having a place to stay or to live where you can feel safe and relaxed. It is a very difficult and scary experience and it can affect a person's mental health in many ways. They might feel like they have lost control and that they are not in charge of their own life. This can lead to a feeling of helplessness and helplessness which can be very hard to overcome. What emotions emerged when you were going through this experience of homelessness? When I was going through emotions or that experience of being homeless, many emotions emerged in my mind. I felt scared because I didn't know where I would sleep or how I would get food. I felt worried because I didn't know what would happen the next day. I felt very sad because I missed having a home and a family. I felt alone because I didn't have anyone to talk to or help me. I felt very angry because I thought it was not fair that I had to go through all these kinds of challenges. I felt hopeless because I didn't see a way out of the situation. When I was in that kind of situation, I felt like I had lost control of my life. Bad things were happening to me that I couldn't change. These emotions were very strong and made it hard for me to think clearly and make a good decision. It was a very difficult time, but I tried to stay positive. Do you think the system can do better in dealing with people struggling with homelessness or on the verge of going homeless? Yes. I think the system can do better in helping people who are homeless. Right now, it is hard for people to get the help they need. There aren't enough places for people to live and it is hard to get something like food and other basic things. The system should provide more support like affordable housing, for example, food assistance and job training. This would help people get back on their feet and have a stable life. The system should also treat people with kindness and respect and not judgment. Sometimes, you find instead of giving somebody a point of direction so that they can be able to get basic needs, some people don't have that knowledge and they go ahead and try to judge people. For example, everyone deserves a safe place to live in and a chance to succeed. The system can do better by listening to people's stories and understanding what they need. By working together, we can make sure everyone has a place to call home. What do you think about the negative connotations stemmed around being in inadequate sheltering or living on the streets? I think it is unfair and hurtful to judge people who are living on the streets or in inadequate shelter. Society often views them as lazy, dirty or criminal or they have no future. But this is not true. People become homeless for many reasons like, for example, losing their job, having mental illness or fleeing abuse or because of their health issues. They are not bad people. They are just struggling. We should not shame them but instead of offering help and support, we should recognize that housing is a basic human right and everyone deserves a safe place to live in. Negativity, for example, negative communication will also make it harder for people to get back on their feet. We should work to break down those stereotypical people and offer compassion, understanding and resources to help people get back into stable housing and rebuild their lives. What do you think as a society can we do to help with homelessness or to improve going out and living a successful life after living in some type of homeless situation? Well, as a society, we can do many things to help people who are homeless and support them in building successful lives. For example, first of all, we need to provide more affordable housing options and emergency shelters so that people have a safe place to stay. We should also offer job training programs, education and mental health services to help people overcome challenges and gain skills. Additionally, we can provide food assistance, clothing and other basic necessities to help them meet their immediate needs. We should also work to break down stereotypes of people and stigma surrounding homelessness and treat people with kindness, respect and understanding. Furthermore, we can also advocate for policies that address the root cause of homelessness such as poverty, lack of affordable housing and discrimination. By working together and providing a supportive environment, we can help people who are homeless to get back on their feet, rebuild their lives and achieve their goals. Policies will not only improve their lives, but also make our communities stronger and more compassionate. According to the Human Department of Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center, children experiencing homelessness are more likely to experience chronic diseases, behavioral healing concerns, developmental delays, hunger and malnutrition to those who have homes, which means the likeliness of children who get to grow up in these conditions are more likely to get jailed for just being born in a situation where they have no choice but to live in. In a document by the National Association of Realtors, it stated that people who become homeowners are reported a higher self-esteem and higher perceived control over their lives. Next, I will be interviewing my mother who has grown up with a polygamy father who lived like one family even though he had many children from different wives. His family was very loving and close with everything that happened when she was growing up. She has not experienced living on the street, but has experienced going through refugee camps. Do you think the system can do better in dealing with people struggling with homelessness or dealing on the verge of going homeless? Yes, I think the system could do better to support the individuals who go through homelessness or who are on the verge of it. Or who are on the verge of becoming homeless by forming a way of supporting them to overcome such situations, especially for young children who grow up under this kind of circumstance and may not experience love and they grow up being angry for such systems or they grow up not doing the right things in the community. What were some problems you faced coming out of the refugee camps? Some of the problems we faced when we came out of refugee camps was we were delayed in our education because there was no education system in the camp. The goal was just for us to survive. What made you think differently after going through this type of situation? I was grateful that I had a mother who was well-educated and the education meant a lot to her. When we came back to our country, the first thing she did was to organize for us to go back to school. What were some of the experiences living in a refugee camp? In a refugee camp, I experienced that very little things can be shared and people care for each other even if they were going through a lot. And then I experienced trauma because of the exposure we were in. Every sickness can be contagious because we were in a crowded place and no proper hygiene was done. What were some takeaways from being in the camp? For me, personally, I also didn't realize that that was a problem because I was so young. And the main takeaway was there was a lot of people we could hang out with as if playing with a friend and then learning new languages. From these two interviews from my parents and the information provided, we as a society should find better ways to make sure that people, especially children, should have access to shelter and basic resources to live.