While looking for something to
write about for my blog post this week, I came across a YouTube video entitled
“This is what community oriented policing looks like” (I will post the link to
the video at the bottom of the post). I was intrigued by the title since most
cop videos I see have to do with police brutality and car chases. However, this
video was much different. The video was about Houston Police Department
Sergeant Steve Wick, who was a member of the city’s Homeless Outreach Team. The
goal of this team is to help the various homeless people of the city of
Houston. In the video, Sgt. Wick can be seen talking to various homeless people
about how they are doing and how he can help. What struck me most was the fact
that he knew everyone he saw around the city personally. It was very
heartwarming to see a police officer like Sgt. Wick that possessed
philanthropic values and wanted to help the homeless people off his community.
This brings me on to the problem of
homelessness. When we did our in class presentations last week, I was in the
group which talked about homelessness. I learned so many things while we
researched from our presentations, and many things I learned surprised me. The
first thing that surprised me was that there are three types of homelessness,
and not just the “sleeping on the street in the city” I usually thought about.
Actually, chronic homelessness makes up a very small portion of the homeless
community. Many people who are homeless are homeless because of unforeseen
circumstances such as job loss and medical expenses. Many of these people are
just like you and me, which makes homelessness such a relatable topic of
discussion. One other thing that shocked me was the statistic that 19% of all
homeless people are employed. We often think of homeless people who don’t have
jobs and aren’t trying to help their situation. When I did this research, I
realized that many of these people are trying as hard as they can to return to
a normal lifestyle.
Sometimes, homeless people just
need someone like Sgt. Steve Wick who cares about them and looks out for them. Many people hold a
negative vision of the police, but that is because all we ever hear on the news
is about shootings and police brutality. We almost never hear about people like
Sgt. Wick, but this story is something everyone needs to hear about.
Philanthropy in general doesn’t get much time in the news as mentioned in
previous blog posts, but I think it absolutely should. However, philanthropists
do their work to improve the well being of others and not for the spotlight.
I’m sure Sgt. Wick would have continued his life changing work whether or not
he was in the news.
What did you think of Sgt. Wick’s work?
Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqWdlDABmvo
Hi Eddie, thank you for a great blog entry. One the things that resonated well with me from your group’s presentation was how you incorporated easily identifiable victims when describing the issue of homelessness. It was great to watch the video you posted and see the positive reaction the officer received from the homeless. While it’s unrealistic to expect each of us to change everyone’s life, we can certainly change some lives, and to each person we help, that could mean everything. Officer Wick has not eliminated the issue of homelessness, but I am sure each person he has helped feels like his or her world had changed. This can even be seen through the man that claims Officer Wick and his cat are his two best friends. As you said, “Sometimes, homeless people just need someone like Sgt. Steve Wick who cares about them and looks out for them.”
ReplyDeleteWhile watching this video of Officer Wicks, I was reminded of a video created by A Path Appears (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RzRwsQG2lA) featuring Jennifer Garner talking about children living in poverty and stating “…I promise you, if you hung out with these kids you would be shocked, because they are as smart as your fancy little kids and their fancy little preschools. And I include mine in that.” While this statement was initially targeted more towards the poverty issue, these two issues are clearly closely linked. More importantly, in the video she is telling us not to put ourselves on a pedestal above those facing these challenges, because we are not very different from them. I think that having a mindset like Jennifer Garner’s is crucial because it helps us to pay attention to the actual stories of people we may otherwise overlook.
After watching the video of Officer Wick, I was left thinking about all the individuals who are facing this issue. I came across this short video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJIQwwXJ_tw) titled “What’s the difference?” I think this video further shows that behind the exterior of the challenges we see them facing, are individuals hidden by their unfortunate circumstances. Through a simple clean haircut, we are able to see people completely differently. While something like a haircut may make someone look completely different to strangers, the challenges they are facing still remain. However, through just a haircut these men probably will be given more respect from strangers, which can only help them.
The most important takeaway I got from these three videos is to remember the individual stories behind each homeless person, rather than just focusing on one commonality between them. We need to remember that we can make a difference much larger than just a drop in the bucket, especially for people on an individual level. These videos all show us that there may fundamentally be more things that we have common with homeless individuals rather than differences that set us apart.
Great post Eddie! I think your post and people like Sargent Wick really give people a new perspective on the homeless community. I think Sargent Wick is doing incredible work and while maybe an everyday person does not have the resources he has to actively stop homelessness, his attitude is something we can all learn from.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is this stigma surrounding the homeless community that they are lazy or some how responsible for their own conditions. While it is clear that this is not always the case, it seems as though society has taken this "truth" and used it to make treating homeless people as less acceptable. Furthermore, claiming that Homeless people are responsible for their lifestyle is like claiming I am responsible for the comfortable lifestyle I live--which is just not true. Like you mentioned sometimes there are just unforeseen circumstances or unfortunately you are born into homelessness.
What moved me most about Sargent Wick was the way he treated the citizens he encountered on a normal basis. He took the time to know them personally. He knew their names and their stories they were not just another homeless person to him. Often time I feel like society as a whole walks by homeless people with disgust or uncomfortableness. We assume that they are troubled or just looking for a hand out. But why? Why has society come to this conclusion just because they face different circumstances? We have to remember, just like Sargent Wick, that these people are still people. Maybe they need people to care about them by learning their names, listening to them or just treating them decently just as you or me would expect someone to treat us. Empowering these people through support could be more powerful than handing out a dollar for both them and ourselves.
Eddie, thank you for sharing your thoughts on a controversial topic in recent times. Police brutality and overuse of force may be a problem, but in my opinion it is a much smaller problem than people think. People tend to believe what they hear and see on the news and in mainstream media without researching for themselves. In fact, over a six year period from 2005 to 2011, the arrest rate for police officers was 1 in 1400 (US DOJ). This is over 300 times lower than the average for the entire population over the same time period, which is 229 arrests per 1000 people (FBI). While police officers should be held to higher standards than the general public, the vast majority of officers deserve that standard and the respect that goes along with it.
ReplyDeleteYour example of Sgt. Wick is great example of officers giving back to the community. The majority of police officers are like Sgt. Wick, and uphold the values of "To protect and serve." It sickens me the way that media has portrayed police officers lately. While I am not condoning the actions that a few police officers have been accused of lately, the actions of a handful of officers is not representative of the over 1 million police officers nationwide who are protecting Americans and serving the community on a daily basis.
Your post hit me on a very personal level, as my girlfriend's father whom I am quite close is a police chief in Syracuse. He is instrumental in organizing the Special Olympics in Syracuse, and always brings a lot of officers to the event to volunteer. His police department also puts on fundraisers throughout the year to raise money for the Special Olympics. I am sure there are many other examples of police officers doing good and giving back to their community, but the media sadly does not show this side of America's law enforcement.
Hey Eddie,
ReplyDeleteI am glad to see that our presentation made such an impact on your blog post this week. I think together as a group we showed everyone how homelessness isn't what we expect. The information you provided about the 19% of homeless people are employed shows how important it is for us to set aside our pride and our perceptions. This is something we need to take in to account when we go through the organizations. As we, as a class, choose our core values...how do we go about differentiating our perceptions and the needs of our community. Sgt. Wick shows us that we need to look beyond what we know all the time. Mainstream media and such can take away from what we need to take away from the many organizations in Broome County and the needs that they meet. We also can't have a few failures in a system take away from all the good in the community. Our job is to figure out if we as a class can create change in a way that can be sustained. But it also our job to consider all the organizations and the impact they make every day.