For this year’s World Homelessness Awareness Day, one of The PLACE’s Outreach Case Managers, Kayla, shared some insight on the importance of our work.
What has been your experience working with vulnerable populations?
In the past year, there has been a big focus on outreach. This tends to ebb and flow; for instance, we do prioritize getting outside as much as possible in the summer and winter. With the upcoming winter, we focus on outreach and support finding people as much as possible.
What is unique to the work we do with vulnerable youth?
The uniqueness really comes from this being a time in their lives that is especially in fluctuation. At that age, you’re often finding out who you are and what you want in life – you may be exiting high school and entering the adult world. There’s a lot of life skills, and we focus on working on setting goals – career goals, school goals. These are really important questions for everyone in our client’s age range.
What is something that surprises you about our work?
What really surprises me – in the best way possible – is how our clients really look out for each other. There’s such a network in the clients we see, as well as adults we see on outreach; adults we encounter on outreach look out for our youth by taking cards and trying to connect youth with us and our organization. It always surprises me, and I love it.
I also am always surprised by how much of a community our clients create with one another. Sometimes we’ll do a client intake, and by the end of the day, it looks like they’re best friends with everybody.
What are some of the biggest misconceptions about homeless people that you have encountered?
I think the biggest misconception is that there is choice, and that people are choosing to live this way. Especially for our client demographic, it’s often an issue of not having the same opportunities, which can add up to real struggle. Being unhoused is often for our clients not a choice but a product of their circumstances.
What support are our clients most in need from in the community?
Going into the winter season, we are really mindful of the cold weather for our clients. We’re always in need of socks, hats, and handwarmers especially. We also try and host holiday events every year, in the past we’ve done stockings for our clients, which is a fun tradition. While we can usually cover the necessities for those, we’re always looking for additional fun items – like gift cards, mini makeup pallets, chocolates, and small game books. Stocking stuffers!