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Date:
To:
From:
Subject:

August 8, 2014
Professor O
Juliet Nakasi
A Recommendation Report on a better system for Helping Hand Shelter

I have created a report for Helping Hand recommending a better system to help more homeless
people.
The system the shelter has right now is a good one, but with the recommendations I make, it will
make it even better. I recommend a system that helps people that are currently living at the
shelter, while also helping the shelter to bring in more people. The current system only requires
people that live at the shelter to go out and look for jobs. Which is great, but with more help and
a better understanding of what to expect at the jobs, this will help the homeless people more.
This system will help the Helping Hand shelter to fulfill their need to help more homeless
people.
I hope this report helps you understand why there is a need for some changes to be made.
However, mostly importantly how these recommendations will help both the shelter and
homeless people at the same time.
If at any point reading this report you have any questions, please email me at
naka0157@umn.edu.

Helping Hand Homeless

Shelter
What does this shelter need to do to provide
better support for its clients in order to move
them from temporary shelter to more stable and
permanent housing?

A Recommendation Report from

Juliet Nakasi

August 8, 2014

Table of Contents
Introduction4
Methods...8
Results..9
Discussion12
Conclusion and Recommendation12
Back Matter15

Abstract
The purpose of this report is to recommend better ways the Helping Hand Homeless
Shelter can help more homeless people through some type of class. I analyzed the problem that
the shelter is facing. There is large number of homeless population, but they cannot meet the
needs of all of them right now. They have limited space and can only take in a limited number of
people at a time. Although the shelter is considered temporary, people end up staying for long
periods because they cannot go anywhere. In the end, the shelter ends up having limited space to
help other homeless people, but the number of homeless people keeps growing each. Therefore,
after making the analysis and reviewing different sources (journal articles, interview, newspaper
articles, and YouTube documentary), some type of class for the homeless people may be able to
help both the shelter and homeless people in the end. For example, people with mental illnesses
will get a class that helps just them; homeless people that are trying to get back to work will be
educated on a few different techniques they can use at work places.

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Introduction
I chose to write this report for a homeless shelter in Anoka County, Helping Hand
Homeless Shelter. The purpose of this report is to determine what this shelter needs to do to
provide better support for its clients in order to move them from temporary shelter to more stable
and permanent housing. The shelter wants to help more people, but is not able to because the
people they have in the shelter are not moving out. They do not just want people to leave because
they want to bring in other people - they want them to leave after finding something that will
help them outside of the shelter. They have been unsuccessful with getting people out and
bringing in new people. They have case managers to help the people, but the numbers of the
people leaving the shelter are very low hence the huge waitlist of those that want to come in.
This is where I propose my idea of getting something like a class on site at the shelter.
Before presenting an overview of the problem, I want to define a term that will be very
important in understanding why the changes suggested in the report will work for this shelter.
The term I want to define is shelter. In my own words, I defined it as a temporary place where
homeless people live. The dictionary has a few definitions for the term shelter. Two of the
definitions were, the protection or refuge afforded by such a thing: He took shelter in a nearby
barn (is the example they give for this definition). The definition that was close or similar to
mine was, a building serving as a temporary refuge or residence for homeless persons,
abandoned animals, etc. The word origin and history of shelter was, structure affording
protection, M.E Sheltron (1585). This definition is important because the ideas of a class
mentioned in this report, will not apply to other types of shelters. These will only apply to the
temporally shelter. The temporary shelter for this report will be the Helping Hand Homeless
shelter.

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To get some background information about the shelter, I did some research on the shelter
and interviewed Emily Johnson, who works at this shelter. According to Johnson, the shelter
takes in different types of people. The shelter take in people that were addicts, veterans that have
no place to stay, people that lose their homes due to unemployment or other reasons, and lowincome families that cannot afford houses. The shelter faces a large number of people who want
to live in the shelter. However, the shelter has limited space. Johnson said they have over one
hundred and fifty people on the waitlist.
. When I heard this, I thought about a better way that can help the shelter ensure that there
is a substantial number of people that leave to pave way for other people to come in. What they
need are people that work with the homeless people at the shelter and educate them about
different things. In other words since the shelter takes in different people with different needs, it
would help them if they got like some sort of class that would help the people that live there. I
know the shelter has case managers that help with things like filling out applications or taking
the homeless to interviews. However, they need people that go beyond helping them with just
those things - people that will give them more information about the different fields of jobs and
resources. The resources I mean here the skills needed to keep jobs. People that will let them
know the outcome if they take up a given job. Some jobs are usually temporary and some just do
not stay for a long time. Nevertheless, if the people living in the shelter say they have found
something, they move out only to come back a few months later because the jobs ended
Alternatively, addicts that were not properly prepared with the necessary resources will end up
going back to the same habits. I think this will help the shelter because Johnson said the way
they have it right now is; people are just required to go and find jobs. When they come back in
the evening, they just have to report that they were indeed looking for jobs. No one checks to see

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if the homeless people are lying or not. However, if they have a class or people that deal with
this at the shelter, there is no way of saying they did it when they did not. This system will also
have other benefits that I will point out.
This report is of significant necessity for the shelter. This is the main shelter in Ramsey
and Anoka city area, but they cannot take in many people due to the limited space - yet the
number of homeless people in the area is just growing tremendously each year. I made a
comparison between the rate of increase of the homeless people in Ramsey and Anoka with that
of the major cities in the United States. In the article written by Cantu (2014), he starts by saying
as the number of homeless people in Americas major cities has increased This helped me
think about whether the number of homeless people has increased in Ramsey and Anoka. I
estimated the increase by asking Johnson based off the large waitlist they have, whether that
means there has been an increase. I used the information I got from her to create this graph.
Cantu does not give numbers; therefore, I just made estimates for the major cities. This can be
seen as illustrated in the graph below. This graph shows how the number of homeless people has
increased from 2011 to 2014.

Increase in number of homeless people

16
14

Rate of increase

12
10
Ramsey/Anoka City

Major Cities in America

6
4
2
0
2011

2012

2013

2014

As you can see from the graph above, the number of homeless people has increased both in the
Ramsey and Anoka cities just as it has in other major cities in America (Cantu 2014). However,
there is no space for the homeless people to go to in the shelter. The shelter has a few ways that
help people to move out of the shelters, but the rate of success has not been great as earlier noted.
To help improve the rate of success of people moving out of the shelter, I came up with a great
idea of introducing something like a class.
In this report, the focus is on the Helping Hand Homeless Shelter. I interviewed Johnson
mostly to get the background information about the shelter. I also did some research on the
homeless situation is America and I will share a few things I got of the research that back up my
facts. Therefore, in the results section I will talk about the information I collected. Then I will
relate it to my topic. Finally, I will make my recommendations of how the class should be
structured for it to work. In the conclusion I will mention why the class structure is the best
system that will help the Helping Hands Homeless Shelter.

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Methods
I conducted some research using different sources. The sources were helpful to show me
what other shelters are doing and if there, a few things I can take away from them that would
help my project. I watched a YouTube documentary about homelessness in America. The
documentary mentioned a few things that relate to this particular shelter. I read an article about
growing criminalization of homeless people. In addition, I looked at three different print
sources. The three print sources have different information about the homeless situation in
America. These helped me determine whether what I am suggesting is realistic or not.
The main way I got information about the Helping Hand shelter was by asking Emily
Johnson who works at the shelter a few different questions about the shelter. Some of the
questions I asked were; 1. What type of people does the shelter take in? What are the
requirements for entering the shelter?, Do people move out of the shelter, and at what rate? Does
the shelter help the homeless people in terms of finding jobs or other resources when they first
come to the shelter? If so, how do they do it?
I also created a survey for people to figure out if the system suggested by this report will be
effective or not. Sample questions of the survey were,
1. Do you think the system I am proposing will work?
2. Should the shelter just get volunteers for this or should they hire people to do it?
3. Would you be willing to donate if they end up needing to hire people for this service?
4. Do you have any other information you would like to share about the whole process?
I decided to use few questions because I wanted to get as much information as possible rather
than getting less with many questions.

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Results
Background information about the shelter was obtained by interviewing Johnson. She
told me about the shelter and the need to increase the number of people the shelter can help. The
need for the shelter is to be able to bring in more homeless people that are on the waitlist, by not
just sending those are already there out without a good plan. The shelter wants to find a better
way to help homeless people find jobs and learn techniques of how to keep the jobs. Therefore, I
sat down with Johnson to get a little bit more information about the current situation at the
shelter. The interview was conducted on July 25th 2014. I asked her various questions. I will
briefly point out what she said. My first question was the type of people that the shelter takes in.
She said, the shelter take in people that were addicts, veterans that have no place to stay, people
that lose their homes due to unemployment or other reasons, and low-income families that
cannot afford houses. Then I asked her about the requirements that a homeless person needs to
have before coming into the shelter. She said, every person has to have some type of income or
assistance they receive to help them with their personal needs. The other requirement Johnson
mentioned is that the people that live there are required to go out and look for jobs every day.
Then I asked, Does the shelter help the homeless people in terms of finding jobs or other
resources when they first come to the shelter? If so, how do they do it? She said the homeless
people have case managers that help them when they need help with filling out applications or
any complicated documents. Case managers work with homeless people to find jobs for them, or
help them with any other type of help that the homeless people may need. This answered both
sections of the question. Yes, the homeless people get help, and that case managers are the main
people that help them to navigate these resources. My final major question was, Do people
move out of the shelter, and at what rate? She said, Yes, almost every day we have people

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leaving when they find jobs. However, she also said the number of people leaving is less. For
example, one person might leave, but they end up getting requests from about five people that
want to come in. This information helped me with coming up with a system that I think will best
serve the shelter. I asked Johnson a few other questions as you would see throughout the report.
However, these were the main important questions that helped me figure out the solution. They
gave me an insight on what is lacking at the shelter.
The other research I did was by watching a YouTube documentary about Homeless in
America. The documentary touches a few different things that I found relevant for my topic. For
one, it focused on a home shelter in Freeport, Illinois. Someone conducted an interview with one
of the main people that runs this shelter in Freeport. The person interviewed was called Dean
Wright. He answered various questions. I chose to focus on questions that relate to my topic.
One of the things that were talked about in the interview was when the interviewer asked Wright
about the factors that lead people to homelessness. According to Wright, almost all factors are
income related. He said, People lose the ability to pay mortgage or rent. This was the main
reason for the homeless people in their shelter. This was important to me because this is also one
of the reasons for the increase in the number of homeless people in Ramsey and Anoka. Then the
interviewer asked him if there is something that the shelter does to help their homeless people.
Wright said they have some time of training, but not on a programmatic level. However, he
also noted that due to the lack of a training that is programmatic, they are planning to change it
soon. He said they are trying to come up with a better system that will help homeless people
develop skills like, working with other people, associate with other people, talk to people the
homeless people end up working with. (Homeless in America) These are exactly the types of
things that I want the Helping Hand Homeless Shelter to help the homeless people to develop

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through the class. It was refreshing to know that a home shelter that is not even in Minnesota is
also considering a system that is related to mine. The best quote I took away from what Wrights
shelter is trying to achieve is when Wright said, the shelter wants to give the homeless people
something that can give them purpose beyond just putting money in their pocket or leaving the
shelter. This is what the Helping Hand Homeless shelter wants to achieve too.
I used three print sources for this research. One of the sources was by Hodgetts, Stolte,
Radley, Alan, Grot, and Shiloh that just gave me background information about characteristics of
homeless people. I used this source as background information to understand the homeless
situation in America. Before I decided to do this topic, I did not have a clear picture about the
homeless Situation here. This article helped me learn more and get characteristics of homeless
people. The other source was by Link, Schwartz, Moore, Robert, Struening, Stueve, and Colton
that was just background information on whether it is true or not that people are getting tired of
helping homeless people. This article was important for me to understand whether it is true or
not that people are getting tired of helping because the main way most main way the Helping
Hand Homeless Shelter gets its help is through donations (Johnson 2014). In this article it says,
The way in which Americans view homeless people is a matter of considerable importance.
(Link et al. 534) However, they also go on to point out that the answer provided by the media is
that, The public is losing compassion and is becoming increasingly hostile toward homeless
people. (Link et al 534) This is something that the media is putting out there. However when
Link et al made their study, it was not the case. This is great news to hear because for the policy I
am trying to recommend, the shelter will need many people to donate to the program. The final
print source was by Chen. I used this source for background information too. It mainly focused
on people with mental illnesses. Helping Hand Homeless Shelter takes in people with mental

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illnesses too. It was important for me to get ideas of how they can also be helped with the
system. Chen (2014) reports that In making the transition from an institution to the community
people with severe mental illness often experience fear of insufficient treatment support and lack
of resources to meet daily needs This was good to know because one of the things the class
will need to address is how to educate the mentally ill homeless people about resources that are
out there for them. This in turn will help calm down of not having any resources.
Discussion, Recommendation, Conclusion
All my resources were helpful in one way or another. The result I got from all sources
were ways in which homeless people can be helped in different ways. Some had information that
helped me understand the different types of homeless people. For example, the Hodgetts et al
journal helped me understand the characteristics of homeless people. The Chen source was
important to help me understand how people with mental illnesses can better be helped. The Link
et al article helped me figure out whether people will be willing to continue to help the homeless
people. The YouTube documentary not only help provide me with more information about the
homeless situation in America as a whole, but also helped me to know whether the system I want
to recommend has been used before or if someone is thinking about it. The article that I did not
mention in my results was the article from the United Department of Housing and Urban
Development that was suggesting ways to improve Homeless Peoples Access to Mainstream
Benefits and Services. This article was also offering a few ideas on how homeless people can
better be helped. What all these sources are trying to do is give information on how to help deal
with the homeless situation in America. Although these were general resources and not just
specific to the shelter this report is for, they all hand useful information that can help the Helping
Hand Homeless shelter.

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My research question was, What does this shelter need to do to provide better support
for its clients in order to move them from temporary shelter to more stable and permanent
housing? I recommend that the Helping Hand Homeless shelter should create a class that helps
homeless people at the shelter. The type of training the class will provide is teaching the
homeless people the different skills they need before going back to the outside world. By outside
world I mean, the world that some of them were part of before they became homeless. The most
prominent outside world being the working world where people go to work and pay bills. This
class will equip them with training on how to handle different situations. For example, the
mentally ill people that do not know about the resources available to them will get more
information about these. How they can be protected at work places or from people that do not
understand them. People that lost their jobs and feel like they can never get back out there
these people will be equipped with information of how to handle these situations on how to get
back in the working world. They will get different skills on how to obtain and keep a job. Part of
the job understands how to work with others. If the homeless people are educated and trained on
how to handle these skills, they will be better employees. I know the class can help most people
in the shelter. What made me think this was a great Idea is when I watched the YouTube Video
and saw that another homeless shelter had the same thing in mind. They also want to develop this
sort of program because they know it can help. For this class to work, the shelter will need either
people that are willing to volunteer their services to help train the homeless people or people that
are willing to donate some money to help pay for this service. The good news is that after
reading the Link et al journal, people are willing to give. On top of this, I also conducted a
survey where I asked people what they thought about this system. In the survey I was asking
people if they think the system I recommend will work or not, whether it should just be

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volunteers or people hired, and if they would be willing to donate if they end up needing to hire.
About 80% of the people thought this was a good idea and that it will work. 75% said the shelter
should just hire people to offer the training. By hiring people, it will ensure that the homeless
people are getting the right and important skills. Majority also said they would be willing to
donate.
Graph reflecting results from the survey
16
14
12
10
Agree

Disagree
6
4
2
0
Sytem will work

Volunteers

Hire people

Willing to donate

The main points of this research was to figure out a system that can be used by the
Helping Hand Homeless Shelter to help homeless people to move them to more permanent
housing and to help more homeless people. I mentioned in the introduction that this is the main
homeless shelter in Ramsey and Anoka city. However, the number of homeless people in this
region is increasing yet there is nowhere for the homeless people to go. The shelter has case
managers that help homeless people and help them to move out, however the number of people
moving out has been less than the number of people they have on the waitlist. To help improve
this situation, the shelter was trying to figure out a system that can benefit both people that were

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already living in the shelter and those that want to move in to the shelter. That is why I
recommended that class system.

Appendix
1. Link, Bruce, Schwartz, Sharon, Moore, Robert, Phelan, Jo, Struening, Elmer, Stueve,
Ann, and Colten, Mary. Public knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about homeless
people: Evidence for compassion fatigue? American Journal of Community
Psychology Vol.23 - 4 (1995):.533-555. Print.
2. Hodgetts, Darrin, Stolte, Ottilie, Radley, Alan, Leggatt-Cook, Chez, Groot, Shiloh,
Chamberlain, Kerry. Near and far: social distancing in domiciled
characterization of homeless people. Urban Studies Vol. 48 8 (2011):
1739(15). Print.
3. Chen, Fang-pei. Developing Community Support for Homeless people with Mental
Illness in Transitional Services: Discharge. Community Mental Health Journal
50 5 (2014): 520-530. Print.
4. United States, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy
Development and Research. Strategies for improving homeless peoples access
to mainstream benefits and services. (2010)
http://www.huduser.org/publications/pdf/StrategiesAccessBenefitsServices.pdf
5. Johnson, Emily Personal Interview 25 July 2014
6. Homeless in America documentary. Oct 24 2013. Web
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwJQuwEi_8g
7. Aljazeera America. Aaron Cantu. 18 July 2014. Web

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http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/the-growingcriminalizationofhomelessness.html

Survey Questions
1. Do you think the system I am proposing will work?
2. Should the shelter just get volunteers for this or should they hire people to do it?
3. Would you be willing to donate if they end up needing to hire people for this service?
4. Do you have any other information you would like to share about the whole process?
Interview Questions
1. What type of people does the shelter take in?
2. What are the requirements for entering the shelter?
3. Do people move out of the shelter, and at what rate?
4. Does the shelter help the homeless people in terms of finding jobs or other resources
when they first come to the shelter? If so, how do they do it?