I see homeless people everyday in Chicago, on almost every street I walk down and on the trains and buses. Society turns their heads away from homeless people because of perception and deception. I’m taking on the issue of homelessness in Chicago. This issue is direct and cultural violence. This is direct violence because of gentrification in neighborhoods throughout Chicago impacts people and can lead to them becoming homeless. This is cultural violence because This conflict is happening because of many different reasons. Gentrification plays a role in homelessness because when places become gentrified, people who lived in those places previously have to resort to finding a new place to live or they become homeless because of the prices rising. People who come back from the army, who were incarcerated and released back into society, people going through domestic violence, and people with mental and chronic illnesses. The Ladder of Tolerance is a tool that is used to measure how much one tolerates behavior that is different than one’s own. On the Ladder of Tolerance, I am at awareness with homelessness. On the Ladder of Tolerance, society is at coexistence with the issue of homelessness and homeless people. I analyzed the conflict between these homeless people and myself using the Iceberg Method. What I see are people who don’t give money or food to the homeless. Underneath the surface, people have thoughts of deception with what homeless people do with the money they get and people are judgemental of people who say that they are homeless. One group that is addressing the issue of homelessness in Chicago is the Pacific Garden Mission. According to their website, “Since 1877 Pacific Garden Mission has been fed multitudes of hungry and hurting people. Today we embrace men, women, and children experiencing homelessness with the compassion of Jesus Christ.” The Pacific Garden Mission is of Christian Faith but they accept people of all religions into their community. “Pacific Gardens
Mission does meet physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of homeless and hurting men, women, and children.� The work that Pacific Gardens Mission is doing supports my thesis that it’s better to give to an organization than an individual so that the donor can assure their donation will be used as intended. Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institute listed 198 ways to intervene nonviolently and effectively to change social problems. Since I want people to help homeless people, I decided to use social intervention techniques. One of those techniques I used is establishing new social patterns (Albert Einstein Institute). I did this by starting a hashtag called #20shotsforchange. I uploaded two videos on youtube with this hashtag. Gandhi was a pacifist who sacrificed his life in an effort to bring peace to the world. Gandhi came up with many principles that he followed which are still relevant to the world today. I used one of his principles of swadeshi, which means local economy. There are many people in the United States who are oppressed or held down due to their circumstances. Our society today is so used to viewing someone who is homeless or identifies as homeless as someone who is crazy, or a person who is scamming people to get money. I implemented this principle by In conclusion to my nonviolent intervention, I felt that I did the most I could’ve done with the limited resources I had. I enjoyed doing something positive and giving back to my community and city. I learned that there are many different things that go into homelessness. I learned how I can encourage people to give what they can for change towards for a issue locally and globally. I also learned that donating and volunteering to help bring change in your community can bring people together. Something I learned about myself as a person is that I really love to help wherever I can, no matter how big or small the task is.