Homeless at Harvard
A little known fact about me amongst my peers is that a significant portion of my young adult life has been spent in fellowship with the American homeless community. My mother and I spent every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember passing out milk baskets of food and toiletries to homeless folks in texas. My church had a ministry called Massechaba, which used to provide meals and career readiness services after service. My uncle Bo spent several years under the bridge after vietnam. My good friend, Justin, was also homeless. He committed suicide my junior year of college, and I always felt guilty because I could have, and perhaps should have done more to help. Because of these experiences, I developed a deep empathy for and conviction to serve America’s homeless population, and desire to earn the expertise and skills necessary to do so with efficacy, as a Special Student.
During Undergrad, I developed a close mentor - mentee relationship with Dr. Winship in the sociology department, whose classes exposed me to the depth of American social inequality and its practical solutions. In his classes I learned about ethnography as a primary form of sociological research and gained appreciation for the facts that my talents as a writer and data scientist coupled with my socioeconomic background - a gang violence survivor, homeless-serving entrepreneur - uniquely enables me to immerse myself in complex communities as a researcher, ally, and servant for those in need.
Beginning in one of Dr. Winship’s courses, but lasting well beyond, for 18 months I followed 3 homeless men around Harvard square to learn more about what it looks and feels like to be one of them, as well as to learn how their experience here differs from that of homeless communities elsewhere; preliminarily I found that the Cambridgian homeless community is self regulating, deeply integrated, and characteristically benevolent and enterprising, compared to those elsewhere who are much more prone to drug abuse, low life expectancy, and suicidal ideation. Yet, I want to take my ethnography and service to the next level. I am currently working on a documentary about Billy (William Collins), who was a drug addict (now sober), who, thanks to our time together now has housing, a job, and no known chemical dependencies. I intend to tell his story, but also to tell the story of countless others in an effort to humanize the homeless and to attract resources to entities that serve them at scale.
Ultimately I would like to run an NGO that delivers housing, healthcare, and education to marginalized communities, but first I aspire to round out my expertise with formal coursework in microeconomics, psychology, program evaluation, sociology, and VES. In addition to the classes I take, I intend to publish two articles - one about the Harvard area homeless community and its idiosyncrasies, and one about homelessness in general, specifically the statistical characteristics of the community and how governments and NGOs might most efficiently serve them. I expect to work closely with Dr. Winship and others to make sure that my academic experience is both broad and deep and am committed to doing my best work, both in service to Harvard, as well as to those who need us.