H.O.U.S.E. summer internship students (Photo – Brian Biery)
When he works in the community, Shawn Morrissey often wears a sweatshirt with “We Love Drug Users” emblazoned across the front in bold letters.
By Brian Biery
The statement is generally misunderstood and shocking to some, but according to Morrissey, that is the point of wearing it. For him, it is a matter of compassion and respect. With personal experience living on the street and years of serving as a homelessness outreach worker, Morrissey knows how unhoused persons and people who use drugs are generally treated by society.
“I guess I wear it (the sweatshirt) because people don’t love drug users. And I do. Addiction flourishes and kills in the absence of community, love, purpose, and relationships. And people heal and get better when those things are present. I’m intent on helping create that wherever it is in short supply.”
Morrissey is currently the Vice President of Advocacy & Community Engagement for Union Station Homeless Services, one of the largest organizations combating homelessness in L.A. County. These days, a considerable amount of effort is focused on educating the public and demystifying the causes of homelessness and eradicating stereotypes about people who are unhoused, including those surrounding drug use. Morrissey sees it this way: “People who soothe with drugs have often been through more than a lot of others have. And while they might not require more love, they do need to be seen. And to know they matter.”
One of the ways Union Station is changing perceptions about people in our community who are unhoused is by organizing an annual high school internship program called H.O.U.S.E. The acronym stands for Homeless Outreach Utilizing Students and Education, and it is an intensive, week-long seminar on homelessness. Now in its third year, H.O.U.S.E. is structured to encourage students to find solutions for this seemingly intractable issue. In order to identify viable pathways to housing, students first must understand what causes a person to become so vulnerable that they might be living under a freeway bridge or sleeping on a sidewalk.
This summer, eight area high school students participated in the program. For Morrissey, “H.O.U.S.E. isn’t about telling students what to think about homelessness. It’s about giving them the knowledge, the relationships, and the lived experiences to think more deeply, ask better questions, and become the kind of leaders our communities need.”
For many of the students, it was a surprise to learn that the main driver of homelessness in our society is not drug addiction. Instead, according to USHS, homelessness is the result of a complex web of social and economic conditions, including the lack of affordable housing.
For Nanar Sepilian, a senior from Pasadena High School, “I met people with stories that I never expected to hear. Many had experienced things that were completely out of their control, such as losing a job, escaping domestic violence, dealing with serious medical problems, struggling with mental illness, or aging out of foster care without a support system. Others simply could not afford housing because rent continued to rise while wages stayed the same. I realized that homelessness is much more complicated and harder than I had ever imagined.”
Common perceptions about persons experiencing homelessness are that “They did it to themselves,” or “They had a choice, and this is what they chose to do with their life.” According to Sepilian, these comments contribute to the stereotype that homelessness is the result of bad decisions or drug addiction rather than circumstances beyond a person’s control.
For Joanna Torres, who is also a senior at Pasadena High School, the focus should be on being more compassionate.
“I thought I knew the cause of homelessness, but I was wrong. It is not always about drugs or alcohol that cause people to be unhoused. In reality, it is how life throws curveballs at you.”
In addition, for Torres, the issue is personal. She once had a family member who lived on the streets of Pasadena, whom she would see every day on her way to school.
“When I see those who are unhoused, my mother would always help as much as she could. She would always tell me to always be kind even if you don’t have much, like a couple cents or dollars could help them.”
Due to this kind of caring assistance, her family member is now housed.
“Sometimes he would come to my house and my mom would always give him food and water. Now he is off the streets and I’m so proud of him.”
One of the factors contributing to misconceptions about people who are unhoused is how the topic is discussed in the media. News coverage is often negative and filled with assumptions about who is living on the street and how they landed there.
According to Chloe Manookian, a senior at Marshall High School, reporters and journalists who cover homelessness need to improve how they write about the issue. She observes that “Media outlets often use sensational headlines for clickbait and shape public opinion, creating the impression that homelessness is constantly worsening.” Rather than publishing stories that create fear and anxiety, Manookian believes there should be another, more ethical system for reporting the facts.
Manookian believes that “…the media should shift its focus toward success stories that highlight effective solutions and inspire people by showing how they can make a meaningful difference. To do this, journalists and organizations should use ethical storytelling. Ethical storytelling protects the dignity, privacy, and truth of people’s experiences rather than exploiting them for attention. This means receiving consent, contextualizing, and listening to individuals so their stories are represented accurately and respectfully. It also means avoiding trauma-heavy material or portraying organizations as ‘saviors.’ Instead, ethical storytelling should center on the resilience and strength of those experiencing homelessness while recognizing the systems that shaped their circumstances.”
Another concern that H.O.U.S.E. presented to the interns is the constant worry about the criminalization of homelessness. One recent example is the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, in which the Court held that laws prohibiting sleeping or camping on public property do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
For Sarai Hamilton of Westridge School, this type of ruling is completely opposed to how our state should be treating persons who are experiencing homelessness.
“Californian officers who swore ‘to protect and to serve’ began cuffing the unhoused,” she notes. And “…sleeping in public made you a criminal despite not having a bed to call your own. During this time there was not any room for empathy, no room for unsheltered people, and no room in the jailhouses. But when it came to measuring their heights in the mugshots, there was not a tape measure long enough to assess the amount they were loved and valued as a human being.”
Indeed, since the Grants Pass decision, according to the ACLU, more than 25 cities in California have passed ordinances criminalizing unhoused people. The effect of these measures is that “…unhoused people could be saddled with thousands of dollars in fines and even jail time for sleeping outside, even if there are no shelter beds or housing options,” notes the ACLU.
For Yuriah Goodwin, a junior at Muir High School, criminalization misses the point and does nothing to solve the problem.
“It’s easy to stereotype people whose best and worst moments are on display for every passerby to see. To judge their behavior and their hardship, when they don’t even have a roof over their heads to start bettering themselves under,” she observes.
The H.O.U.S.E. internship clarified for her the reasons why people are unhoused, as well as the most effective solution: housing.
“It seems simple because it’s true. Homes solve homelessness; USHS actually exemplifies that through a policy called ‘Housing First,’” states Goodwin.
Homelessness is a vexing issue that has befuddled U.S. society for decades, particularly in places like Southern California, where the confluence of contributing factors provides fertile terrain for large numbers of unhoused community members. Even so, there are concrete solutions and, where there is commitment, mechanisms for prevention.
For Morrissey, USHS’s H.O.U.S.E. internship program provides a starting point for ending the cycle of homelessness. The key to successful transformation of hearts and minds is compassion.
“If even one student leaves H.O.U.S.E. seeing a person before they see a problem,” shares Morrissey, “…we’ve changed more than a mind, we’ve helped shape the kind of community that we want to live in and one that they’ll build for the rest of their lives.”
This is excellent