Personal Narrative: The Homeless Worker

My journey with Chick-fil-A began when I was 16 years of age. Even as a teenager, I understood the value of a dollar thanks to my parent’s direction. I wanted to have the freedom of driving my first car and beginning my financial future. As soon as construction began on Reynolds Road FSR, I recognized I wanted to work there. I completed my application online and delivered it to the trailer marked “Now Hiring” in the parking lot. Little did I fathom that this one act would transform my life forever. Rob Watkins opened the door and asked if I would come in for an interview later that week. I replied “sure” with much excitement. Later that week I went to the interview and Rob hired me on the spot as his first employee. I was ecstatic! The paperwork

The article “The Myth of Helplessness” by Jay P. Greene, talks about education and how a child social status can affect them. When some people are facing problem they tend to make excuse for themselves. When people are making excuses that is just another way of saying that they are just giving up. When people are from a trough background they sometime have a hard time trying seeing a better future for themselves and believe that they will live the same way they are living now in the future.

One day while heading to my car from leaving work, I notice a homeless man near the dug out of the baseball field where I parked my car. He was playing with a harmonica. I notice how wonderful he sounded, so I complimented him and gave him a tip. It was only a dollar but he reacted as if it was one hundred dollars. He was so happy, he asked if he could sing a song for me and I replied Yes! After he sung his song for me, he shook my hand and told me I was a great

Every individual has a different background and it is our job as educators to take that into consideration as we educate our students. While reading the articles and watching the film, I realized that not all students are fortunate enough to have a stable household and some may not even have a roof over their heads at night. I was in awe by the amount of homeless youth that are out on the streets of Chicago every night. In the film, The Homestretch, it stated that 2,000-3,000 homeless youth were out on the streets every night. It also stated 19,000 students are registered as homeless within Chicago public schools. This made me realize the challenges they go through just in one single day. I began to realize that education is not their number one priority, it is surviving through the night. How can we ask students to do homework at night, when they don’t even have a place to go to?

In my experience, my homeless clients have engaged in high risk health behaviors and neglected their health. These high risk behaviors include substance abuse, criminal activity, incarceration, and unsafe sex practices. As a result these individuals experience high disease burdens and mortality rates. Boston Health Care for the Homeless estimated that the total annual expenditures from ER visits was $16,011,738 annually (Thakarar, Morgan, Gaeta, Hohl, & Drainoni, 2015). “Multiple factors have been identified as predictors of frequent ER use in homeless persons such as older age, previous hospital admissions and emergency room visits, multiple primary care visits, perceived inadequate mental health care, poor health status, and HIV” (Thakarar, et al., 2015). Previous studies have shown that homeless individuals are frequent emergency room (ER) users and this leads to high health care costs (Thakarar, et al., 2015). Several clinical trials have shown that interventions such as intensive case management programs, assertive community treatment teams, or supportive housing can reduce frequent ER visits and hospital costs. (Thakarar, et al., 2015). The cost of providing case management needs to be weighed against the value of

I currently participate with my church in Rialto making meals for the homeless and are distribute every Sunday morning. We usually provide meals for about 250 homeless who are aware of our program and expect a meal every week. I also have free piano lessons at my church for children who attend the church and for those who do not. They do not need to be Christians in order to participate, because it is a way to keep children from trouble. After, I graduate I want to provide health care to areas of low resources for people who cannot afford expensive health care benefits. I plan to work with teenagers and children to keep them away from drugs, gang relationships, and help them obtain a

Clay woke up to the loud, and obnoxious screeching of the alarm clock that rested on the floor next to his bed, he groaned in annoance at realization of consciousness, wishing sleeping felt longer.

“I’m working a part-time job at Wendy’s.” Ordinarily, what is the first thought that comes to your head when you hear this sentence? Greasy fries, polyester uniforms, dollar menu food? Now, what about the people who work there? Do you picture a first-time worker, a high school dropout, other pimply-faced employee taking your order? Oddly, in our society, we have associated low-quality workers with low-quality food? In his article “Working at Wendy’s” Joey Franklin paves the road towards a new perspective about those who come to work at Wendy’s. Instead of explicit points and unshakable statistics, and powerful calls to action, Franklin alternatively leads gently us through a process of revelation. Drawing from his own experiences working at

Lani: I was helping for someone’s project for COMM 245; I was in the video lab, in the studio. I was on campus and decided to contact everyone I knew who comes to the school. I remember I sent out a snap saying guys I think there is a shooting, be careful and then I started sending out individual texts to people making sure they were okay, like hey are you good? Stay out of an area. I didn’t know how many people were getting shot. I just knew it’s not good and that we have to be careful. At first, the campus was like we are unsure, just be careful, and then it took some time till I finally got an email that said stay on campus and were held there for about two hours, I just kept recording.

In the past I had volunteered at the Salvation Army so this was not my first experience in working with the homeless population. For that reason, I was able to tune into my own life experiences before my shift. I knew beforehand that I would not have the answer for everything, especially when it came to the referral aspect because I’m not fully aware of the resources we have nor the requirements for them. Which is where Liz would come in, I told myself if I ever had question I’d ask rather than give the wrong one. I also knew that I would have the ability to emphasize and engage when hearing their stories. They too are people just like everyone else and just because they might live on the streets or smell a little they shouldn’t be treated

I knew my life had hit rock bottom when i was on the pavement, in a worn in suit at the edge of China-town wearing my vomit like a bib. I 'm at the bottom of a very dark, dark pit. It 's engulfing every last ounce of hope I was holding when another friend accepted me to sleep on their couch for a few weeks. Until they were sick of my endless broken promises about finding a job and using their money for anything other than alchol to cope with the enclosing darkness. Now I have spent my last ten dollars on a greasy pork bun. If you had seen me only months before, you would have never, never expect me to become homeless. Well off, big house and an amazing wife. But the alchol was always the problem. It was the third person in our relationship, it was small until I started to skip work because of the hang overs and the absent of alchol rotted my

As I sat on the sidewalk with him, shame overtook my heart. The glares from others passing by caused me to feel utterly uncomfortable but I continued to listen to his story. I knew what I had been called to do when I accepted this opportunity but never had I imagined it to be like this.

The smell of the onion and carrot soup from today lingers in the air. Bread crumbs litter the floor like sand on a beach. I always stay late in the evening to help clean up. As usual, Henry Watkins takes the longest to let the soup move down his throat to his hungry stomach. He was one of the firsts to start eating dinner here. Now we have around 200 people every night. Many people had too much pride to even come in at first. This is all happening due to the stock market crash. I started volunteering at the soup kitchen when I first saw the signs, “Help wanted new soup kitchen opening”. Yet the only reason I was here was to gain some kind of father-daughter relationship with my dad. Al Capone, my father, did not know I was his daughter though.

For one week every summer, the senior high youth at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Roseville drop everything to venture somewhere in the United States on a service learning trip. Since I happen to attend that church, and I just so happen to be a senior high youth, I have joined these trips for three years running. Usually, we help out in soup kitchens, do some yard work, or visit homeless shelters. However, our trip during the summer of my junior year was destined to be different from the very beginning.

Homelessness is a struggle that most people don’t know, or that people ignore because they frown on homeless people. These people frown on homeless people because the homeless are often unshaven ruff looking people that had a bad turn in life, this life changing event that turned them into what some people frown upon. These people are frowned upon by so many but the people that frown upon them have no idea what their going through.