Have you ever asked yourself, “How did I get here?” I know I certainly have at times. Whether it was something as simple as zoning out while going somewhere or more of an in-depth question about how I ended up in a bad circumstance, this is a question that has come up in my life. When I look at the question, “How did we get to the current homeless crisis in the United States?” Through talking with people who have worked in the shelters, I came up with a conclusion of multiple factors. In my opinion, the primary driver is a capitalistic society that only values people for their ability to generate a profit for someone else. In a capitalistic society, to be employable, you have to serve a role that produces more value than what your employer is willing to pay you. That is how the employer makes money. This creates a circumstance where many employers seek to outsource work to countries with cheaper labor or to automate and replace human labor with machines or AI. These actions are the most profitable for the business owner, and in a capitalistic society, Profit is King. As a result of placing profit before people, many of us are told from a young age that our dreams are unrealistic. We are told to give up and “get a real job, with benefits and a 401K”. This is essentially nonsense espoused by corporations' owners to convince you to work for them. Everyone is born with a gift, a light they are meant to shine into the world. This light, however, is often tarnished because it is not perceived as valuable by society, family, or peers. This inevitably leads to self-doubt as our gifts are stomped on by others. They may even mean well; they are assuredly trying to justify giving up their dreams and projecting them onto you. As humans, we want to make connections with other humans. We want to be valued and appreciated, so we change ourselves. We begin to project what we believe is essential to functioning in society, our family, and our peers. This internal conflict can lead many down the path of drugs, alcohol, processed foods, or doomscrolling in front of a screen to numb the pain of not being able to be ourselves. Drugs, alcohol, processed foods, and electronics are addicting, and chronic use can seriously disrupt the life of the user. Overconsumption of drugs, alcohol, and processed foods can often shorten the lifespan of the user, negatively impacting all those who care about the user. Addiction is one of the 5 main reasons why people end up on the street. Now, they may not all follow the path I laid out above. There are many other reasons people turn to drugs and alcohol, like experiencing loss or trauma, but the point remains it is where many people end up. The second most frequent reason why people end up on the streets is due to mental health issues. Now, mental health issues can be brought on by a multitude of factors, and as with addiction, it is difficult for those impacted to seek help, especially due to how our medical system is set up. We are very much a band-aid culture when it comes to medicine. Doctors are taught in medical school to identify and treat symptoms rather than identify and treat root causes. This again goes back to the capitalistic nature of our society. Should we teach doctors how to identify and treat patients' root causes, people would eventually learn how to better care for themselves. This would lead to less demand for doctors and less demand for medicine. Big Pharma would never allow that, so instead, they fund medical schools to teach symptom management. They have their reps pitch drugs to disguise symptoms and enable people to continue whatever destructive behavior brought on the symptoms to begin with. This again leads back to addiction as not only do the pharma companies want to ensure doctors prescribe meds, but the medicine itself is often physically addicting. When you tell someone all of their problems and pain will go away just by popping a pill, it is very tempting, no matter how strong you are. Mental health is a little trickier as the causes are not always as straightforward as physical ailments. I experienced it firsthand when doctors prescribed random anti-depressants for someone I was very close to that caused them to have drastic mood swings, weight gain, and self-harming behavior. Mental health requires access to people who are skilled and trained to help. It requires education on what to look out for and how to handle stress healthily rather than relying on medicine. Anyone can struggle with mental health when dealing with the stresses of their everyday lives, so think about how stressful it must be to live on the street, to not know where your next meal is coming from. Think of the toll that this takes on the mind. People need to be secure before they can work through and process the stress. The third primary reason people end up on the street, which I honestly hadn’t even thought of before beginning to consistently volunteer at a shelter last year, is age. You may be thinking, what do you mean by age? There are around 400,000 kids in foster care in the United States. I didn’t think of what happens to them after they age out of foster care. Think about how difficult it is to provide for yourself at 18, even when you grow up in a healthy household with parents who have a stable income. Now imagine not growing up in a stable household, not having a family that loves and looks out for you. I can easily see why so many young people end up on the street. There is now also a significant rise in the senior population that is experiencing homelessness. Many people must work later in life, and benefits like Social Security and Medicaid aren't enough to afford a home. The fourth reason is because of court-mandated payments that they don’t have the means to pay. The fifth reason is they were impacted by crime. While some people may fall outside of the circumstances, this covers a large percentage of people affected by homelessness. My goal in founding Cherry Willow Apparel is to help people experiencing homelessness empower themselves by rediscovering the beauty within themselves. To help them find a way to shine their light on the world. It has a lot to do with my favorite philosophy, Ikigai. Ikigai is the intersection of “what you are good at” “what you enjoy doing” “what the world needs” and “what you can get paid for”. From all of my research, it is the worthiest pursuit in a capitalistic society. This is why I founded Cherry Willow Apparel. I am good at relating to people and telling their stories. I enjoy meeting new people and helping them. I got the idea of an apparel brand from years of experience selling apparel and then meeting some people who had successfully launched their own brands. I hope that by interviewing people experiencing homelessness, I will be able to uncover “what they are good at” and “what they enjoy doing” to connect them to someone who needs that work and is willing to pay them to allow them to complete it. Most people are good and want to help each other, but we often don’t know how. My goal is to make it as easy as possible to help in whatever way you can. By interacting with the stories on social media, you’re helping to spread the message, which could be why a connection is made. The world is smaller than we think and more connected than we realize.
