On January 25, I did intake from 9-1 at the Project Homeless Connect event at the Egan Center in Anchorage. This was the first time that I had ever been involved with this event and I was pretty nervous about what to expect. I am used to being around homeless people (I moved from Atlanta to downtown Juneau to downtown Anchorage) but I am not used to interacting with them. I was nervous about what I would think of them and more so, what they would think of me. The questionnaire that we were required to have them fill out in order to receive services was pretty personal and I knew that if I was on the receiving end of the inquiry I would have felt very vulnerable. Before we started to check people in, one of the organizers of the event came around with a note card that had three names written on it. These names were people who were feared dead and we were asked to watch out for them. I can’t even describe how that made me feel, I’m getting a bit emotional just thinking about it again.

There were a couple of people that I interviewed that particularly stood out to me. One was a young woman around 20 years old who was living in a domestic violence shelter. She was beautiful and someone who you would never expect to be homeless just by looking at them. Her two children had been taken away by the state and I got the feeling that she was just completely overwhelmed. When going through the list of services, she couldn’t quite make up her mind about what she was interested in doing that day. It was almost like she couldn’t believe that there were people who were prepared to help her with the issues that she was facing. It was also pretty apparent that she hadn’t been “in the system” as long as some of the other people I talked to. Some people answered the very personal questions that we were required to ask with such ease, it was almost like they had no concept of privacy anymore. This particular woman seemed to recoil with every question and I felt terrible for being so intrusive.

Another person that stuck out to me was a younger guy (25ish) who had just been released from jail. He has been couch surfing for a couple of months since his release and was able to find random and unstable day labor, but not able to secure any type of steady employment on account of his criminal record. He had a previous drug charge and was therefore unable to get food stamps. I do not know what this particular guy did to land himself in jail, and I am not of the belief that individuals shouldn’t have to pay for their actions. But, that being said, the way the justice system is currently set up drives me insane. To me, what will happen to the inmates once they are released from the institution and securing their success in the outside world in order to reduce the recidivism rate should be a top priority while they are still incarcerated. I know there is never enough money to go around and all that, but I also know that corrections has become one of the biggest businesses in the country and it seems that some of their money would be better spent on connecting inmates who are coming up for release to services so they don’t become re-incarcerated shortly after being released.

One other general thing that stuck out to me over the course of my time at the event was how the majority of the people I interviewed would look to me to judge how they were going to react to the intake process.  Many times, people came up to my station with hardened looks on their faces and it was almost like they were prepared to be judged or treated harshly. I can only imagine that is the way that they are generally greeted out in the real world. As soon as I introduced myself, smiled and shook their hand it was almost like some of the people had a sigh of relief and the whole atmosphere around the interview process changed.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with the event. It was awesome to see hundreds of volunteers and many services come out to donate their time and services to assist the homeless.