The Power of Community: Why Local Support Matters

Tackling San Diego’s homeless issue is a movement that needs an entire community behind it. Already, thousands of volunteers around the city are putting a considerable effort, and the results have been astonishing. Homelessness over the past few months has actually decreased, as i’m told by my friends at People Assisting The Homeless. However, without this community, these results wouldn’t be seen. This is not the end, and is alternatively only the start, as this is a community that needs to grow for homelessness to be solved for good.

The wonderful employees at PATH

Why Community Matters

When dealing with the homeless population, you are often dealing with individuals broken not only financially, but also socially. They have often been left behind in society, and have thus lost all trust for people. In order to help these individuals, you must rebuild their trust first. The most effective source of help I have seen is when case managers get to know a person and really try to connect with them. This bond that they creates also builds trust, with the individual now being open to receiving help. Once this trust bond is established, the case manager can connect the individual to services and resources, and the individual can receive the help they need.

Community doesn’t only benefit the recipients of these resources either. Resource providers can work best whenever resources are not only shared with each other, but intertwined. Sites like CrossroadsSD, yes i’m name dropping, do this in a way where they provide a hub of resources for resource providers to not only easily give their clients the resources they need, but to also find what is really out here in San Diego, and how they could maybe work in partnership with other resources.

What we need

We need more people. This community is already vast and large, and has made a serious impact that has reduced homelessness. However, just imagine if say twice as many people volunteered against the homeless. The impact alone would be incredible, so many more people would be taken off the streets! That is why I encourage every reader to day to take an hour or two out of their week and donate time to help this cause, as we need people like you to help end homelessness and increase our impact.