Now that I have a place to live and am no longer homeless, my experience of poverty is that of unemployed. I’m in the process of applying for welfare, but unless I end up being diagnosed with a ‘condition’ that reflects an inability to find or hold employment, I’m required to keep looking for work.
Lately I’ve been reflecting on what the ideal job would be, what it is I am meant to be doing, or at the very least, can tolerate enough to stay employed at. I’m lucky enough to have quite a few skills, and have been envisioning how to put them to use, and what it would look like to get paid to do so.
I think about what I currently spend my time doing. Reading and writing about poverty and homelessness takes up the vast majority of my day. I am pretty much obsessed with the fact that so many people are without the most basic of necessities in the land of plenty while so many others are oblivious to this reality, or hold misguided notions that people choose to be homeless, or deserve to be. I have been studying this issue for long enough to know that shifting people’s perceptions is extremely difficult. The reality of the situation is that those of us who do care about alleviating poverty and homelessness (and ultimately ending it) truly need to be doing everything we can.
There is one approach I have been considering to alleiviate my own poverty and be able to help people, and that is to find some service I can offer to people with lots of money, and then have money (and time/energy) to be able to help others. This is a very pragmatic and practical approach in some ways, but it just doesn’t resonate with me. As much as I appreciate the logic of this approach, I don’t know how long I can survive working to make life better for the well-off.
I feel I have a calling. I am most happy giving things away. I am most happy helping people. I am most happy being part of a group of people who are helping each other, more like it. I care deeply about my brothers and sisters on the street and in various forms of poverty in my community. We are not getting the help we need and we need to help each other. I would love to be out on the street all day, giving away food and clothing and whatever else, advocating for people, helping people navigate this broken system, listening to people, talking to people about solutions, advocating solutions, writing about and making videos about these conversations, devoting my life to alleviating, and advocating solutions to, poverty and homelessness.
I’m aware that there are many deep systemic changes that have to happen in order for poverty and homelessness can end. I think capitalism has to go, but I don’t know what that looks like. I love to study these things, and I’d like to be involved in making these deep changes happen, but in the meantime, I would like to be out there doing things that are thought of by some as ‘band-aids’ and ‘charity’, because we are still in need of these band-aids until such time as we’ve figured out how to change the system so that this suffering doesn’t keep happening. I think it’s wrong to assume that the people working for charities and non-profits, or just out there helping people with free food and what not, do not think about or work on the real solutions. It’s more likely that the people who donate to these charities often feel that they charity is the solution, and don’t give enough thought to how poverty is created. That’s also an overgeneralization, because I think there are people who donate to charity but also work on making lasting, deep changes to society and culture so that charity one day become obsolete. Not enough people, mind you, but some.
I’d like to travel across Canada (or even just around the islands and up the coast), talking to people about poverty and homelessness, helping people, giving food away, making radio shows and videos and hosting events. If there are people in poverty who feel like they’d like to end their poverty by starting a small business or marketing some skill they have, I’d love to help them with that. I’d love to facilitate people working together to share skills and resources, to advocate together, to organize to demand/negotiate for the things they need.
But where’s the money in that? I can’t charge the people I’d be helping fees for this. There is no non-profit that I yet know about that is hiring for this kind of work. And I have no idea where I would get the money to do this if I started my own organization. I don’t want to be spending all my time fund-raising. I want to spend my time doing things for other people to make their lives better. I am inspired by what Rev. Al Tysick is doing. After retiring from Our Place he started a non-profit that will allow him to be out there on the street every day, being a friend to people in need. No stuffy office, no bureaucracy, just outreach.
Honestly, I haven’t fully thought out what this ideal job would look like. I’ve been too busy dreaming up plans to make money. Plans that come to nought because I have no passion for making money.
So, I’m just putting this out there. Just sharing what I have been wrestling with in my mind lately. Maybe you have some ideas. Maybe you want to volunteer to fund-raise (and maybe do bureaucratic organizing) for a non-profit that does these things. Maybe you know how to fundraise in a way that can pay your salary to do so. Please share any ideas/input you have.
You’re a good writer and blogger, and you seem to have a handle on social media, so if I were you I’d try to search for this role (communications, community manager, copywriter) in an existing non-profit (a church, a shelter, a social justice group, an opinion site), even if it’s not a non-profit that does exactly what you envision.
You can learn more about sponsorship and grants from the inside, then start your real passion as a side project. Eventually you’d have enough connections and credibility to make this full time. Idealist.org is a good place to get started, and while you’re unemployed, you might take advantage of some time to volunteer.
This is just what came to mind thirty seconds after reading your post, I’ll keep an open mind and ear for any insights or opportunities I come across. Best of luck!
Thanks for the tips.
Yes, I’m realizing I have to work my way up to what I want to do. I was thinking about this today while I was waiting for the bus, and some guys standing in front of me started talking about Rev. Al (who I mentioned in this post). Pretty much everyone in town knows who Rev. Al is and what he does. Anyway, these guys knew him from the street and they were lamenting that he was having a hard time raising funds. It made me think that if Rev. Al, who everyone in town knows, who has been doing this for 40 years, has a hard time raising funds, then imagine how hard it would be for me…the point of my pondering today though was to begin with what I’d be doing if money were no object, and then starting from there. Unfortunately, money is an object…