On gallery day, our team had the opportunity to show Cherri Peate all the research we had conducted over the past month. We showed her the processes we went through in attempting to prevent homelessness in South Bend. Aggregating and analyzing the information from the interviews we conducted, the card sorts, the immersions, and the analogous Homelessness Game we played, we were able to come up with three main factors that contribute to South Bend’s homeless population: mental illness, alcohol and substance abuse, and an inability to cope with ‘normal life’.
In response to our findings, Cherri had some helpful questions and feedback for our team. She pointed out that all of our interviews shared a pattern of middle-aged, white, men. This could have skewed our results and in order to get a more representative idea of the homeless population, it will be necessary to interview people of other demographics including sex, race, and ethnicity in the future.
Additionally, she asked us what we thought homelessness was and what we are really trying to prevent in South Bend. The problem may not just stop at providing housing for the homeless. Something we are trying to solve is people re-entering homelessness or preventing them from becoming homeless in the first place, so we must come up with a solution that is longterm. Simply providing housing would, by definition reduce homelessness, but it may not stop people from continuing the same bad habits they were doing before they had a home. Therefore, it is necessary to address the major issues amongst the homeless population to keep them off the streets in the long run.