How I did it: Through an internship, I created a Consumer Advisory Board of homeless and formerly homeless individuals in Houston for the Coalition for the Homeless. I recruited these individuals from all over the Houston area through a variety of homeless services. They will meet and come up with solutions to homelessness from their personal perspective and then offer these solutions to the Coalition so they can work to enact them. They just had their first meeting and all 18 people I selected through and interview process showed up. They were all so grateful to me for giving them and the homeless population this opportunity for their voice to finally be heard. The board seems very capable and passionate and I think they will do great things to finally solve the problems of homelessness in Houston.

Lessons & tips: Through this experience I learned a lot about homelessness. A lot of society thinks that the homeless are lazy or stupid screw-ups, but most of the people who get in this situation have some sort of life changing tragedy or mental illness that isn't their fault. I also learned that if you want to really make a difference you need to really understand the group you are helping instead of making assumptions of what they need. For example many people think they are helping if they donate change to a homeless person, but the money would be better utilized with a donation to a transitional living center that helps get the homeless education, jobs, and permanent housing.

Resources: Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County: Who the board will be under. The staff was also very helpful to me. If you want to really make a difference check out their website www.homelesshouston.org for ways you can help.

Harmony House: the place where I interned at. They gave me this amazing opportunity and were amazing the whole summer. It is a transitional living and respite center for homeless men.

Volunteer Houston and ExxonMobil: Through their community summer jobs program I got the internship at a non-profit and also got paid a $2750 stipend. If you are in college and are looking for a summer job that will give you an opportunity to make a difference as well as get paid, check this out. Visit the Volunteer Houston site for more details. They sponsor 65 nonprofit internships every summer.

---

Jul 24, 2010, 02:42PM PDT | 1 comment | 13 cheers