Project Homeless Connect is a one day event where homeless persons can receive a wide range of free services. It's held all over the country at different times, whether its once a year or once every few months. Services include food, clothing, dental check ups, hiv/aids testing, id cards, massages, foot washes, haircuts, childcare, phone home, and a list of other services that are not necessarily accessible in emergency shelters.
San Diego held its third Project Homeless Connect (PHC) on December 5th and I had the opportunity to help in this year's planning. The San Diego community came together in the form of organizations and volunteers who offered their time, donations, and services.
As with any event, there was a lot to organize. Unlike an ordinary event, we couldn't anticipate the number of people who would show up since our target audience were the homeless, a rather tough demographic to peg. With over 2000 homeless individuals in San Diego City alone, how many would show up? It's not like we can have people preregister.
Two years ago, the first PHC brought in a little less than 100 homeless. Last year, PHC brought in a total of 195 homeless clients. Since the numbers were seemingly doubling, this year we expected the number to double to 400 clients. Two hours after opening, there were 300+ clients already inside Golden Hall and more than another 300 lined up outside. At the end of the day, there were approximately 1000 homeless people that came and received services.
Although the event went extremely well, people ranging from homeless clients to volunteer agencies have asked a lot of questions including "Well, why didn't you plan for more people?", "Do you think we have all day to wait in line since we're homeless?", "Why didn't intake move faster?", etc.
Well, here's my point of view from the setup and organization perspective.
1.) Volunteers - This event is run entirely by individual volunteers and volunteer organizations. No agency or person has to be here to fulfill any obligations. These people are donating their time and they would not be here unless they cared. We appreciate constructive criticism on how to improve for next year, but if you're receiving free services, you have nothing to unconstructively complain about.
2.) Money - We don't have any. Our budget for this event is $0. Please understand this. We need everything to work within our budget and this includes the big costs of a location (normally $3000-$5000 per day - this year's place was donated by San Diego Golden Hall - thank you) down to the small costs of making copies or buying diapers (thanks to everyone that shelled money out of their own pockets).
3.) Intake Process - During the event I helped manage intake and our problem was that we weren't ready for 1000+ people. Yes, we had a massive line outside that stretched around a city block. However, the problem couldn't be solved by letting everyone immediately in. If we let everyone in, then there would just be long lines inside!!! If I let everyone in at the same time, we would not get the statistical information we need to apply for grants next year. More importantly, we would create chaos inside. Some booths (like food) were already overwhelmed with the rate of people coming in.
4.) Don't tell us your sob story while waiting in line. I'm not cold hearted, I'm fair. If you have a valid complaint like the lady who said she was diabetic and needed food while waiting in line, then we can accomodate. There is no disability where you have to be first in line. We're also dealing with the homeless population, quite frankly (and sadly) most of them are disabled.
5.) Why can't you get more of X service (food)? - It's a one day event; if we overestimate the number for X service (perishable), then we have a lot wasted. We took a good guess on the number of expected attendees, then went with that number for the perishables. We restocked as much as we could while at the event. We stocked as many non perishables as we could before the event. (See Number 2 - $0 Budget) If we didn't have enough, I'm sorry, but that's all we could do.
At the end of the event, an adult couple stormed out of the place crying. The woman was crying because they heard about the event late. At that moment, almost all the agencies had left already, and she matter of factly stated that it was just their luck. The woman had a visible limp to her walk and the remaining volunteers paused to watch this surreal event.
As volunteers, there was nothing we could have done since we had no food or other services left to provide. However, as soon as they left, a group of doctors and nurses chased after the couple. One of the doctors shouted that she was in no medical condition to go back onto the streets. They chased her across the street and helped her get medical care.
That last scene reminded me that we did what we could, but sometimes we must accept that we can only do so much. I'm glad that we are able to do something though; over 800 clients received the services they were looking for that day. It's tangible events like these that make me love nonprofit work.
