Service Learning Log

My experience at PHC was an interesting one. I started the morning out by doing a ten second training (for the people who missed their real training session) and got my shirt and a clipboard with the survey questions on it. I got to the Ritchie center a little before 8 in the morning; however, it was almost 8:30 by the time everyone was lining up to be paired off with people. Buses arrived and homeless people began to exit them. I finally got to the front of the line and got paired with someone. Her name was Marie. She and two of her friends had come together. They all wanted to stick together for most of the time, so I was able to stay with one of my friends that got paired with one of them as well. Throughout the time at PHC, I didn’t do very much. Marie knew the things she wanted to do and went to do them. I just sat along for the ride for most of them time. There were occasions when I helped her find things or got information for her. But for the most part, she did everything. She wasn’t a very talkative person either. We talked only for a little bit here and there. For the most part she seemed to be getting things together in her life. Before coming to PHC, she had already begun to get housing, she had a job and she had gotten food stamps. She didn’t need all that much from the services that PHC provided.
Even though I did not learn all that much from Marie directly, the experience of being around so many homeless people changed my view nonetheless. What changed the most about me was my understanding of who homeless people are. Most of them at PHC were ordinary people like me. Things probably just didn’t work out quite the way that they wanted it to and became homeless. I came to realize that something like that could easily happen to me one day. Most homeless people are not mentally ill or lazy. I think now that for the most part, they are victims of circumstance and happenings.