Category: The City of South Bend

Date: 3/3/17
Type: Expert Interview
Location: Downtown Soup Kitchen at First United Methodist Church
User: Robert Powell is a part-time pastor at the First United Methodist Church where the soup kitchen is held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Yuwei, Paul, and I interviewed him to get his expertise on the homeless population he comes into contact with almost every day.

Male, middle aged

Retired firefighter, part-time pastor

Summary of Interview
One of the biggest issues with South Bend’s homeless population is drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and Give the homeless population
motivation to want to change by giving them the resources to do so. A good example of a structured progra for the homeless population is Hope Ministries. They give people a place to sleep and provide meals, but they require residents to take classes in order to better themselves.

Key Takeaways
Many of the city’s resources are not wholesome enough to keep homeless people off the streets. Places like the Center for the Homeless give the homeless a place to sleep for the night, but it does not stop them from panhandling during the day. These places give them no structure or incentive to live more independently and responsibly.

Memorable Quotes
“Some of them [homeless people that stay at the Methodist Church] come from drug court. They have alcohol and drug problems. Rather than the judge send them to jail because they’re good people, they send them upstairs.”

“There are requirements they have to do, go to classes and go to Oak Lawn and go through what is called IOP, intensive outpatient program and it’s a good program, but you can’t force somebody to change their life.”

“It’s a six month program they go through [Hope Ministries] and if they do that and they graduate they can live there for two years.”

“Bringing them in at 8 o’clock at night and kicking them out in the morning isn’t the thing to do because during the day they’re panhandling, doing their drugs and alcohol.”

“They need to send people out in the field and talk to these homeless people and give them a program—you can’t tell them to go and do this and do that…they’re not used to showering, used to doing laundry, it’s like training a child again. You forget these people are coming from the streets.”

“You can’t force them, you can’t change somebody, they’re going to have to want to change.”

“The city is trying to do a quick fix…there is no structure, no professional people, no counseling to help these people.”

Ethnography Summary: Yuwei Tu, Paul Cepak, and Amanda Berusch interviewed Paul Go about his perspective on the homeless situation in South Bend. Paul has been volunteering weekly at the soup kitchen for 5 years, preparing meals and serving the homeless.

Date:2/17/17

Location: Downtown Soup Kitchen at First United Methodist Church

User Characteristic: Retired ND employee, middle aged

Key Takeaways:

-Many homeless don’t operate well in the normal society, don’t want to be around other people

-Mental disorder and alcohol/drug abuse big problem

-Not many people use shelters, because they are comfortable where they are

-Wood crafters in Grand Rapids that provides employment for homeless, could be opportunity for South Bend

-Homeless take advantage of resources like food stamps, but not so much job placements

Quotes:

“They don’t like normal jobs. They don’t want to.”

“We have resources associated with Memorial Hospital, and they do a very good job.”

“As long as they’re not harm to others, in a sense they are allowed to sleep in tents. So what the city can do, is they can open up places like this…to at least give some warm.”

 

 

Date: 2/17/17

Location: United Methodist Church

Participants: Paul and Parker

Profile of Interviewee:

• Male, mid 40’s
• White
• SB native
• Criminal Record
• Questionable substance abuse (current or prior)
• Unemployed

Summary: On February 17, we interviewed Rodney Smith (alias), at the Downtown Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry. Over the course of the last 15 years, Rodney has bounced around South Bend, living in the Center for the Homeless and many different friends’ apartments. He has a criminal criminal record (3 Felonies from the early 2000’s), a knee injury, and is recovering from substance abuse. We were able to learn many different things about the South Bend homeless community from his many experiences in various living arrangements. He is currently taking classes at the Center for the Homeless in hopes of landing a job interview when his knee is back to full health. Rodney seemed to be back on the right track in his life, but with a criminal record, an injury, and prior substance abuse, he was the first to admit that even finding an interview will not be an easy task.

Great that your team was able to speak to Mr. Booker.  What are some of the impactful stories you heard?  Key insights?  Do you have any images?

LOVE that your team did the soup kitchen work and spent time getting to know those you were serving.  What a beautiful act of service!  Similarly, would like to read some of the important insights captured from this work.

Keep up the great work team!

On Wednesday, we had the opportunity to interview Rob Booker, the program manager at St. Joseph County Community Corrections. It was very powerful to hear the stories that he had to share, as well as the wealth of knowledge he has about the local homeless population. Mr. Booker saw substance abuse as the biggest perpetrator of homelessness today in South Bend.

Date: Feb 22, 2017

Location: Mendoza

User Characteristics:

• Approximately 40
• Male
• Program manager at the Ducomb Center in South Bend
• 15+ years of experience

Ducomb Center:

The Ducomb Center is a Community Corrections Facility in which people come as a sort of “last resort” before jail time. Its typical resident is a nonviolent first time offender, with moderate risk. Residents must pay $100-300 (or 30% of their salary) to live in the center, which also offers a work release program. The end result of a resident’s stay in the Ducomb Center is usually a house arrest sentence after they cooperatively serve a given amount of time. The length of stay can be anywhere from six weeks to two months.

What is this person’s biggest pain?

As a person in the community corrections field for almost his whole life, Mr. Booker is sad to see repeat offenders coming back to the center in a worse condition than they left the first time. He often sees a cyclical process in which residents keep getting readmitted until they hit rock bottom, and hopefully realize that they need a lifestyle change.

Main Takeaways:

• Substance abuse is the biggest perpetrator of homelessness
• Need adequate treatment and services sooner
• Need assistance with mental health issues
  • Coming out of jail, prisoners are only given a month’s supply of medications
  • After this, if they don’t have adequate healthcare they can no longer receive the drugs they need
• Ducomb Center needs a doctor or psychiatrist on standby to assist with these types of issues
• Residents typically don’t like staying in the center- their main goal is to get house arrest
• Help people BEFORE they reach homelessness

On February 17, we visited the Downtown Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry to help set up, serve food, and clean up. We were able to talk to some volunteers that come on a weekly basis and hear about the stories of people that have consistently come to the soup kitchen.

Key Takeaways:

• Not all who use the soup kitchen are homeless (in fact, most were not homeless)
• The homeless community seems to be friendly with each other- lots knew each other
• The volunteers have valuable information from interacting with the population every week

AEIOU:

Activities: 

• Pouring soup in the cups
• Serving at the kitchen
• Handing out the “to go” bags of soup
• Setting up the tables and chairs
• Cleaning the tables afterwards and putting chairs on top of tables

Environment:

• First United Methodist Church (soup kitchen was in basement)
• Friday morning
• Approximately 50 people in the soup kitchen
• Several tables and chairs, probably about 75% full
• Large industrial kitchen

Interactions:

• Meeting the local volunteers
• Greeting the users as they came into the food pantry
• Answering questions from the users
• Handing out soup to go as the users were exiting the food pantry

Objects:

• Food and groceries
• Cups of soup
• Tables/chairs

Users:

• Volunteers
• People using the soup kitchen
  • Both homeless and non homeless
• Other group members at the kitchen

Love your team name!  Nice job with incorporating the context of your post.  You are off to a great start!

Our stakeholder map illustrates the different stakeholders that a homeless person in South Bend may interact with.

On Monday, under the guidance of IDEO founder Dennis Boyle, we created our initial journey map for the homeless population in South Bend. Attached above- enjoy!

DesignBrief