CRISIS

Today I volunteered at CRISIS in Croydon and we had a group exercise where we all individually went up to a whiteboard and wrote what we thought about homeless people. This was the outcome:

The purpose of this exercise was just an induction into why we volunteer and what we think about the cause that we're volunteering for. So of the people who commented wrote what their opinions of homeless people have previously been homeless themselves. Words like addiction became a running theme which shows that its a running misconception given to these people, many people often (including myself) opt to give a homeless person food or drink or clothes instead of giving them money in fear of them using the money which was given to them to spend on drugs that could lead them to often go into a worse state.

  Begging is also a word which speaks volumes about the homeless community. Many people when they think of homeless people their minds automatically go to the people who they see on the street begging, they forget that there are other categories to homelessness other than 'street begger'.

Pride was one that was asked about, the reason for pride had been because some people could be too prideful to ask for help which leads them to end up in a situation such as homelessness.

This exercise was very beneficial and I think we should take the opportunity to use an exercise like this, it'll be fun.