Recently, I’ve spent some time at New Direction’s Women’s Homeless Shelter. The experience has been one of the most educational ones I have had in my life and helped me grow within my Women’s and Gender Studies coursework but also helped me understand the system of government we live in in the United States and how many people are neglected. Facing so many barriers all at one time, these ladies struggle to get back on their feet. Until we open our eyes to the issues that others face and the things that prevent them from growing and succeeding, we will never know what needs to change and what we can do to help.
Let’s open our eyes:
There was a piece I read a while back titled “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye. This is a piece I would encourage everyone to stop and read right now, but definitely in the near future at least. The piece references oppression as having the impact on a person that a cage does on a bird.
When we look at the struggles that others face, it’s easy to get confused as to why they struggle moving past their troubles or getting around them in the same way we would question why a bird doesn’t move because there’s a bar in front of it. “Fly around the bar,” we think, “you have wings!” Oftentimes, however, we’re too zoomed in to the one issue that we can see. If we backed up, perhaps we would find a whole cage of issues surrounding them. The same way that a bird cannot fly around the bar of a cage due to other bars in the way, people cannot escape their bad situations because of all else that they are facing. They need someone to open the door.
Look at the bars:
Meeting the women at New Directions has widened my gaze even further to the bars that people in our society face. Things that would be surpassable on their own, but are impossible challenges when they all combine to create a more difficult situation for the downtrodden.
One of the biggest challenges to the women I have met that I hadn’t thought about prior to volunteering here is the lack of affordable public transportation in our area. Women who struggle with poverty and homelessness and cannot afford their own vehicles need: a way to get to the several jobs that they work and back to the shelter, a way to get to doctor’s appointments since many of them struggle with health issues, a way to purchase groceries, and a way to pick up prescriptions that they need to survive. The travel from one location to the next becomes a concern that takes several minutes and sometimes hours to plan out as they worry about how to get from one bus stop to the next and what to do when there isn’t a route available for the place that they must make it. Add on physical disabilities that prevent them from walking to a bus stop or getting on the bus they need to travel and a complicated issue becomes much more complex.
This is just one bar—or one set, rather. There are many others that could I could write pages about but for now I’ll list them off and let you reflect on their impacts: growing up in poverty, loss of a family member/loved one, mental health disorder, rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, physical illness, loss of vision or hearing, trauma recovery, addiction, etc. This list continues on infinitely and while these issues are a struggle for the average person, as they overlap the solution becomes nearly impossible to fight alone. Stuck in a cage with bars all around, we have so many people in our society trapped and begging for someone standing outside and watching to simply open the door.
Opening the door:
This is where New Directions steps in. In a world full of birds and cages and people who idly stand by, New Directions steps forward and opens the door. Offering a home (because it truly is a home-like atmosphere) to those who have none elsewhere, New Directions makes impossible situations just a bit closer to achievable. Helping these ladies complete paperwork, find jobs, affordable housing, and helping them get transportation to and from wherever they go along with medical care, New Directions truly cares. I work with a team of women who understand what it means to be oppressed and know how to empathize with the ladies in the home. Realizing their abilities, they open the door and help these women regain their strength and control over their own lives.
If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to support this amazing group of door-openers named New Directions. Volunteer, donate (if not your money then your time and your smile, laughs, and joy), or simply call and ask what you can contribute that is needed. Or start your own service to help people enclosed within their barriers. Whatever you do, don’t be the person who walks by and stares at the cage, leaving the door shut.