Team: Los Angeles #2
Team Members: Tanaya Ingale, Gautam Valiveti, Sreekar Peddada, Aneesh Dasari, Shreyas Sakharkar
Reviewed by: Ashish Patel, Hemanth Tanwar, Anupama Kapoor
Date Published: Sep 14 2022
Over 69,000 people in Los Angeles are homeless. That is a huge number, and it has gone up in the past two years. When someone is homeless, they often cannot access resources to meet their basic needs. During SEWA’s LEAD 2022 programme, LA2 recognised this glaring issue and decided to focus on the homeless population by delivering one of those needs: clothing.
Needs Statement
LA2’s need statement was “A way to address the lack of basic necessities in homeless individuals in order to seek and retain employment opportunities.” Those who are homeless often face difficulty getting employed, even if they are clean of drugs and professionally skilled. But in the meanwhile, they need to take care of themselves. Since they have no job, they have no money and are unable to afford these resources on their own. So, LA2 wanted to focus on a resource that could possibly help them get employment later on.
Solution
The team thought long and hard about the solution and realised that giving clothes would be the most viable option. Most people have clothing that they want to donate, and most homeless people’s clothing wears out quickly or is of poor quality. They then narrowed the scope to the adult homeless population. Clothing could empower them while applying for a job, make them look more favourable to an employer, and just keep them comfortable. Thus, a stock of both professional and comfortable clothing were kept. LA2 also wanted to help homeless individuals by boosting their self esteem. After some thought, they decided to hold two “free pop-up shop” events in Santa Monica, which had a large concentration of homeless people. By offering this large variety of comfortable and professional clothing for free along with a quality service experience, they will help the home less people and understand their problems
Distribution
LA2 looked for public areas in Santa Monica and settled on two locations for the pop-ups: the Metro station and a beachside park, places that had large gatherings of homeless people. The set up consisted of a clothes drying rack, hangers, and clothes to hold up the clothing in a neat way and spaced apart enough to allow for volunteers to deliver service and assist. They made flyers to get the word out to people, and people trickled in. Individuals were able to choose one shirt, one pair of pants, and an accessory like a bag. In the second run, pull-top canned food was also offered. First event lasted 2-3 hours and we distributed most of the clothes. For the second event, we gathered a lot more clothes based on the success of the first event. Second event also lasted only 2 hours as we had to wrap up because of permit issues. We donated the remaining clothes to a homeless shelter
Promoting and Collaborating
LA2 worked within the local Desi community to collect clothing and promoted itself in many ways. The main method was contacting people they knew through texting and posting a flyer on social media and websites like LinkedIn to gain attention. Originally, LA2 had planned to create a Facebook account, but with a timeline of 3 weeks, they realised it would be better to leverage connections and social media presences they already had. LA2 reached out to a local food pantry affiliated with SEWA to collect clothing. They also reached out to multiple stores for any extra clothing they had via email but got no replies. On the days of the pop-ups, multiple posters were put up in the vicinity to attract people to collect clothing. Finally, they posted photos on Reddit to share what they did.
Impact
Two events were held in Santa Monica, CA that helped over 50 people get clothing. Some people were not able to access shelters for various reasons and were able to get clothing through the popup. The group also interacted with 15 others who did not get any clothing, but shared their stories and feedback. It was a decent success that LA2 hopes to improve and continue. Both givers and receivers felt touched by the acts of volunteerism, and it was a really wholesome thing that brought joy to many homeless. Seeing people smile and feel uplifted looking through the clothes was the highlight of this distribution method. Just to share one personal story (among several others), there was this black lady who is homeless but her children are doing alright. So when she goes and meets them she wants to look presentable. So she came and selected a pretty skirt and blouse for visiting her children and a regular cotton shirt for daily wear. It is a heart touching moment and we would not have that kind of experience if we simply collected and donated clothes to a homeless shelter. In that sense we truly satisfied an unmet need.
Future
The group looks forward to continuing these pop-ups with SEWA in the future. One proposal is to integrate it into Diwali celebrations to spread the light to others. As the event grows every year, more services could be added, like food, hygiene services, and health check-ups. A true breakthrough can be achieved if we are able to invite employers to that event and help the homeless get jobs. It would be a big blessing to the homeless of Los Angeles County and instil values of empathy within the younger generation and the wider community.
Conclusion
Through the SEWA LEAD 2022 programme, the team LA2 got together to help the homeless acquire the basic need of clothing in a way that helped to boost morale: free pop-ups. Two events that reached over 50 people were held in Santa Monica, CA. It was a decent success and LA2 hopes to continue and grow this again during SEWA’s Diwali celebrations. Clothes are so much more than pieces of cloth strung together. They are part of a person’s identity, a source of comfort, and a source of self esteem. Hopefully, LA2’s pop-up project can continue to make an impact.
