Visit to UMOM on Watkins

This Tuesday I served dinner at the UMOM center at Watkins.  This is a women's only shelter, however if the main family shelter has overflow, they allow families into this one.  I requested a tour of the center, however I was turned down as they are very focused on maintaining the privacy of the people who stay there, which is a good thing.  While it is usually all women, there were a few families their this time, one family having 6 children in it, the oldest being a young adult and the youngest still in a baby carrier.  Most of the families had two parents: only a few of them seemed to be families with a single parent.  There were far fewer people that actually came to dinner than I had witnessed in the past.  Was the shelter not full because of the nice whether?  Or is it a sign that people are steadily getting more permanent housing?

I spent most of my time today researching various volunteering opportunities in the Phoenix area, but did not find many places that worked directly with the homeless population.

Homeless Volunteering Places I researched and Called
Organization name	Comments	Action
Phoenix Rescue Mission		3/9 Filled online app out
svdp		3/9 Filled online app out
central arizona soc. Serv.	No individual Volunteer opp.
Hands on phoenix	Only group volunteer opp.
family promise of great. Phx	No individual Volunteer opp.
St. Mary	Cant observe homeless ppl
paz de christo		3/9 Filled online app out
Whole Life Foundation		Sent email about opp.
Valley of the sun united way	Don’t work directly w/ the homele
Stand up for kids		Sent email about opp. Email rejected
maggies place	nothing of interest
sunnyslope of refuge	homeless shelter for men	call doug tomorrow 6026780223
Lodestar Day Resource cent	Don’t work directly w/ the homeless
Salvation army	not sure aboutt volunteering
circle the city	only wants volunteers to sponsor fundraisers
Catholic Charities	Not focused on homelessness
az coalition to end homeless	not a lot of volunteering, good info tho	Call tomorrow 6023409393

Awaiting survey results

For the remainder of this week I have been accumulating responses on my online survey.  In addition I have been making calls to multiple stores in the Scottsdale and Phoenix area to ask whether I can distribute surveys outside of their store.  I plan on distributing the surveys next week once I find a place to work at.

I'm spending my weekend in Las Vegas and see many more homeless people here than in the Scottsdale area.  Seeing this only serves to further my questions about the problems of Homelessness in America.

Finalizing the Survey and Developing a Web Survey

So far this week my primary focus has been on creating a web survey that I will be able to distribute through email and other online media to gather more results at a faster rate.  While learning the software to create the survey was difficult to do, the greatest problem was finding the best way to word the questions.  I had to find a balance between making the questions extensive enough to gather the data I required, but also not so long as too discourage participants from completing the entire survey.

The goal of my online survey will be to gather more results to create more concrete data for my research.  Whereas I was limited by time and other limitations when handing out a physical survey, I have much more freedom when using an online survey.  Some pros of using an online survey as opposed to a physical survey include more anonymity, which will most likely cause the responses to be more truthful, and an easier method of reviewing the data.  Rather than going through each survey individually like I would have to do with a physical survey, all of my data is automatically compiled and shown in neat graphs.  The downsides to having an online survey are mainly based on the fact that it is less personal, so people may not care as much and make quicker answers without thinking as much about the question.

While creating the survey for Arizona residents did require a decent amount of time and thought, I think that creating the survey for homeless people will be more challenging.  Among the differences between the two populations, homeless people have significantly reduced access to computers, so I will be conducting only physical surveys to accommodate for this issue.  I imagine that a certain number of people that I interview may be illiterate, which is another reason while in-person surveys are better fitted for this task.  I am beginning to draft this version of the survey and am looking forward to the opportunity to work with and meet the homeless that I am interviewing.

Creating a Survey

To gather research for my project, I need to gather responses from many different people.  The most apparent method for this was to create a survey.  However, given the nature of my questions I need to pose them in a way that will prompt people to respond honestly, given that people may try to make themselves appear different than they actually are.  After testing it on some of my family and friends, I made necessary changes to the survey and deemed it finished.  This is the survey that I will give to citizens of Scottsdale to gather information on the perceptions of homeless people.

For the survey where I need to ask questions to homeless people, things seem to be a bit more difficuly.  Through my time volunteering it's clear to me that people (understandably) don't like to talk about things related to becoming homeless.  The workaround for this will be creating a more informal, personal setting rather than simply handing them a peice of paper.

I plan on beginning to distribute said surveys next week and continuing to do so until I have gathered a sufficient amount of data.

Thank you for reading.

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

I am Seth Johnson, and I attend Basis Scottsdale.  As seniors at Basis, we are given multiple different options to substitute attending school during the third trimester.  One of these options is the senior research project, where we are given the opportunity to complete a research project in any subject area we decide.  My project will compare the perceptions of homeless people to how homeless people actually live and became homeless.  As my main method for gathering information will be surveying people, I will be working at the UMOM New Day center, the largest homeless shelter for families in Phoenix, to get the largest poll of survey participants.

My interest in this topic stemmed from when I was younger; I always wondered what it would be like to not have a home. I began volunteering at various food kitchens and homeless shelters with my parents was I was in elementary school.  I continued volunteering with my friends once a month throughout middle school, and I have been interested in this topic ever since.

For the next ten weeks I will be updating this blog with my progress and results.  With the start of my project right around the corner I can't wait to begin working.

Thanks for reading!

Seth