Day 3 YWCA Workman
Something that i have really realized over the past three days is that I have A LOT of stereotypes about homeless people even if I didn't realize it. At the YWCA I realized that not all homeless people keep to themselves and are very anti-social. I used to think that homeless people kind of shied away from people who wanted to give them help because they didn't want to accept it. I realized that a lot of the women at YWCA are very friendly and are very grateful for what we were doing there.
Lisa's talk this afternoon really focused on the 6 main stereotypes of homeless people:
1) All homeless people are dirty smelly mentally unstable alcoholics living under a overpass.
2) Its their own fault they ended up where they are.
3) Homeless people are lazy.
4) All homeless people need to do is just get a job and everything will work itself out.
5) Every homeless person panhandles.
6) The little things we do for homeless people wont make a difference.
1) All homeless people are dirty smelly mentally unstable alcoholics living under a overpass.
2) Its their own fault they ended up where they are.
3) Homeless people are lazy.
4) All homeless people need to do is just get a job and everything will work itself out.
5) Every homeless person panhandles.
6) The little things we do for homeless people wont make a difference.
The main thing I realized was I believed all of these. I thought that all of these misconceptions were true. Because of this class I have realized that those misconceptions may sometimes be the case for a certain people, but it is not necessarily true for all homeless people. When I next meet a homeless person I just have to remember that assuming the bad about them doesn't do you or them any good.