SERVICES
A. Not in My Back Yard Solution
Require every city/neighborhood to have a minimum number of housing units for discriminated populations.
Maybe affordable housing and one of the following:
-homeless shelters
-domestic violence shelters (this might not be relevant since they are anonymous)
-mental health facilities
-assisted living facilities
-residential foster care facilities
-adult foster care facilities
-incarceration facilities? I don't remember the name of it but it was youth specific
B. COMMUNITY CARETAKERS
****Work with workaway to add this to their list****
To Do List:
-Create a book/resource guide/class for community care takers. I can start by writing the things I know. There can be a base book (that is the ideology/philosophy) and there can be a life skills book that is regularly updated, specific to the times and the area.
I have found that one of the main reasons social services suck is because they are designed to financially replace love. The problem is, you can’t buy love.
It’s said that in communities that are well connected- communities where people check in on each other and have each other’s backs- people have less health issues.
Building a mutual aid community takes time and effort. It’s also something that’s best done with another person for safety.
The role of the Community Care Taker is to:
-Help get everyone’s needs met in their community
-Be a role model for healthy communication through listening, mirroring, and celebration
-Be a role model for healthy behavior through healthy boundary setting, self care, and responsibility
A Community Care Taker is a person who takes care of a neighborhood by building a mutual aid network. They live with a Mutual Aid Host. The Mutual Aid Host will either provide a room for a person to stay in, or they will provide a space for the Community Care Taker to park if they are a van-lifer.
The Mutual Aid Network is built with another person, both for safety and to delegate tasks.
Possible Arrangements:
Community Care Taker builds a Mutual Aid network with a Mutual Aid Host.
A Mutual Aid Host provides a residence, and two Community Care Takers build the Mutual Aid Network.
For the mutual aid/food distribution/etc. person in the community:
-They are a vanlifer, compensated by:
-Having a parking spot in the community
-Getting food from the food distribution site
Things a Community Care Taker helps with in their neighborhood:
(bold are super important items, regular text is optional)
-Food Distribution
-Emergency Preparedness
-Voting
-Public Comments and Civic Duty
-Resource Navigation
-Distribution of free services
-Distribution of information (ex. know your rights)
-Tax Assistance
-Internet, Printing, and Faxing
-Meal preparation
-Community Meals
-Transportation
-Community Gardens
-Exercise groups
-Meditation groups
-Neighborhood social events
-Home schooling
-Life Skills schooling
-Baby sitting
-Respite care
-Basic health care (ex. Things a doctor needs the patient to have family help with.)
-Foster parenting
?CULTURE SHIFTS
Mutual Aid:
1. Establish communities that already have a mutual aid mind-set
host homes, tiny homes, foster parent, emergency preparedness, donation drop-off, food distribution, voting, resource navigation, exercise groups, van parking, distribution of free services, community accommodations such as assisting with noise levels, cleaning, DIY solutions, homeschooling, life skills?
-Creating neighborhood accommodations to help meet climate change prevention goals.
A Community Care Taking role would be good for someone with a restricted income who finds work meaningful.
A Community Caretaker does not do their role as a government employee, a nonprofit employee, or any other paid role through a business or organization. A Community CareTaker is family.
Possible was to help implement this idea:
Have a website to help match Community Care Takers to Mutual Aid Hosts. Have the matching site vet Care Takers and Hosts. Provide online training to Care Takers and Hosts to prevent abuse.
Since a website would be difficult to implement/vet for people outside of San Diego, have an online training so people can vet on their own.
Intentional Communities/Elder Orphans/Foster Families
C. COACHING DAY PROGRAM
When: Weekdays 9am-5pm (or adjust times to avoid rush hour traffic, like 12pm-8pm)
Description: Customizable in-person structured day program with time slots to independently work on goals. People can come in to work on goals they have already decided on, they can get assistance with direction on goals they already have, or they can come to create goals for themselves. This is great for those who need an accountabilibuddy!
D. MORNING EXERCISE CLUB
When: 2-5 days a week, from 7am-8am
Description: An 1-2 hour morning group for people to self care through exercise, taking a shower/other personal hygiene activities, having a provided breakfast, and doing a short meditation and goal setting session.
E. EVENING SKILLS PROGRAM
When: Weekdays 6pm-9pm
Description: A mental health program that provides structured time in groups to practice and implement coping skills relating to relaxation, communication, positivity, reregulation, and other healthy coping strategies.
F. POSITIVITY LINE
Something I wrote a while back:
There are a really large amount of services for talking to someone when you are in crisis. There is pretty much nothing for people who want to be positive. It could be like the Access and Crisis line, but for positivity.
The hotline could be used for people to:
-share good news
-help get ideas on fun things to do (think of hobbies to try to social events to go to)
-practice social skills/conversations
This would be really helpful for:
-preventing crime. One reason people join organized crime, or become victims of cults, domestic violence or sex trafficking is because it’s the only place they get positive feedback and validation.
-people with BPD or other struggles that don’t know how to have a conversation or connect with people that isn’t in the context of a crisis situation. This would help reduce hospitalizations.
-people with autism, mobility issues, or other struggles that make it difficult to converse with people in general
-Preventing relapse. For people struggling with Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (formerly called “dry drunk syndrome”) it’s important to focus on doing sober activities that are actually fun.
You might be thinking: that’s a warmline!
No it’s not.
All the warm lines for San Diego or California residents are either a crisis line that has the name “warm line” or it’s an extension loop that never reaches a person. The name “warm line” has been so misused that it would be best to call this a “positivity line” and therefore less likely to steal funding to create another crisis line.
G. HATE HOTLINE
This would be a hotline for people who either:
-are considering joining a hate group, and would like to talk to someone about it
-are considering leaving a hate group, and would like to talk to someone about it.
Here’s an example:
This one would need to be run by a nonprofit, and not a government related organization.
After learning about some new right-wing groups that are starting and growing in east county, I contacted this line to see if I could give it to others as a resource. They are so flooded with callers/ don’t have enough funding that it took two weeks for them to get back, and it was to ask for my email to get back in contact when they had gone through the call list. For someone who is needing those services, the lack of support available is a huge problem. There needs to be a hotline specifically for San Diego County.
This is an important issue that needs to be talked about more often. One symptom of CPTSD (Complex PTSD, which occurs when traumatic experiences happen frequently) is interest in far-wing groups. In East County people are more likely to fall on the side of right wing extremism, and law enforcement would be especially susceptible to right-wing extremism as a CPTSD issue and a workplace-culture issue. Right now CPTSD does not have much research, and many mental healthcare services can actually inadvertently make CPTSD worse.
Extremism and also genocide really takes off in times of economic struggle. (Ex. Germany before the Holocaust) Right now with San Diego’s economic issues, this hotline would be espcially important. In the long run, progressive political policies must prioritize economics versus services. This is especially relevant in San Diego where YHDP(Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program) funding was available but there were very few applicants, and the applicants were not competitive.
H. EASTERN MEDICINE MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAM
Eastern medicine is typically seen as a last-resort treatment for people with chronic physical and mental health issues, when often it’s actually a very effective preventative measure. Having a program with naturopathic doctors that specialize in psychiatric conditions would be important to have available as a resource to people who are low-income, especially because naturopathic medicine often is not covered by insurance.
Naturopathic remedies in the context of mental health can do a few things:
-can increase the effectiveness of psychiatric medications
-for some people, can replace psychiatric medications
-can increase the effectiveness of therapy sessions
-can help with treatment-resistant psychosis, and other treatment resistant conditions
Policy Idea:
It would be important for naturopathic medicine to be available in all hospitals. It would obviously be helpful for patients, but it would also be very important for doctors- there is an increase of people who are trying eastern medicine treatments without the guidance of a doctor, and western medicine doctors don’t know how to identify and treat overdoses related to at-home eastern medicine treatments.
I. NEUROPSYCH TESTING
Testing for ADHD and Autism is extremely inaccessible, even for people with “good” insurance. It would be really important to provide free ADHD and Autism testing for everyone who is homeless, incarcerated, or formerly incarcerated, with a short waiting period to receive testing. (At least less than 2 months) Because of the lack of testing, lack of services, lack of accommodations, and lack of understanding, people with ADHD and Autism are more likely to experience financial debt, domestic violence, and incarceration.
As a policy idea- ABA therapy is recommended for autism. I have heard it is comparable to conversion therapy for LGBT+ folks. It would be important to make sure people with new autism diagnoses are not directed to harmful services, and it would be important to cut funding to programs that use harmful practices.
J. SERVICE PACKAGES
These are the types of services people with ADHD/CPTSD/Autism often need. Having these services available would be especially important for successful housing placements for homeless people who have these struggles. Having ALFs or ILFs that specifically cater to these needs might exponentially increase the quality of living in these houses and reduce homelessness. (Often there are empty rooms at ILF’s because people are not getting their needs met at the house)
Lots of people with ADHD, CPTSD, and autism can be perfectly successful without these services. These services would be to address the needs of those who consistently are not able to get these needs met, which is a pretty large portion.
-Professional organizer
From my understanding they are a secretary, but for your life. So this person could meet with an individual weekly, and create a plan for the things they need to get done. A secretary in a job would only focus on work tasks. A professional organizer could also help with meal planning, medication management, and social things like friend dates.
-Virtual assistant
This person would give reminders to the person so they remember to follow through on the plan the professional organizer made. This person could give daily or hourly check-ins to a person about the things in the pre-decided plan.
-Cook
For some people, it may not be realistic for them to complete the food process. (Getting EBT and/or money for food, making a grocery list, planning transportation to go to the grocery store, arriving at the grocery store at a time when they are open, knowing which grocery store to get which types of food, choosing food at the grocery store, taking the food back to the place of residence, putting the food in the correct locations in the kitchen, deciding when to eat, deciding what to eat, eating, cleaning afterwards)
A cook would learn about a person’s food preferences, food goals, and any relevant eating disorder information, and complete the above items that the person can’t do themselves.
-Housekeeper
For some people, (I was thinking specifically ADHD or mobility issues) they don’t have the ability to clean even though they really really really want to.
K. Process Addiction Sober living
A sober living house for people with process addictions. Examples: video game/internet addiction, workaholism, anorexia, binge eating, exercise, etc. **The living situation would need to be set up for success, especially for those who also struggle with sex addiction**
L. Hobby library
Hobbies can sometimes be expensive to take up, and it can be difficult to know whether something is actually going to be a good fit. The hobby library is for people to donate used hobby materials they are no longer interested in, or pick up new hobby materials they want to try. If this program was paired with a professional organizing service, it would be a great opportunity for people with financial privilege to donate things they don’t use anymore. Financially privileged people might be more likely to struggle with hoarding disorder.
M. Special Interest Grants
For those with ADHD/ autism diagnosed or undiagnosed, who have a difficult time finding something worth staying sober for- have grants for them to be able to pursue their special interest.
N. Fast-Track Mental Health Education
Have different tracks based on different symptom sets. The tracks would be general information on what the most helpful things to do to heal for specific diagnosis or symptom sets. This would be especially helpful for people with more than one diagnosis. Tracks could also be used to design programs around what people’s needs are in general and on the recovery timeline. I actually thought of the positivity line after reading on recovery stages for different mental health diagnoses.
O. Choose your own adventure. (to help people understand)
Choose your own adventure as a way to literally put yourself in someone else's shoes. This can be for a variety of different situations. Journalists do interviews with people who have lived experience as well as using statistics to develop what happens to the characters.
Physical and mental illness are not choices.
Example:
Homeless in California- choose your own adventure
Start by entering some demographic information to identify privilege.
The scenario for how the person becomes homeless is chosen for the person. It needs to be something that's unavoidable/out of their control.
The more times someone says 'yes' to things that crosses their boundaries, (ex. services and other things) the more likely they are to say yes to a sex trafficking situation.
The more they get rejected, the higher their learned helplessness levels get.
P. Prevent people from leaving shelters and ilfs by organizng people and facilities into the following groups, comparable to the myers briggs test:
clean/messy
quiet/loud
early bird/night owl/unpredictable-changing sleep schedule
no accomodations or intentionality/accomodations and intentionality
(I wrote more about this in my post about the hypothetical program in Japan)
Q. Turn some shelters into intentional community shelters that cater to different groups, such as writers, artists, activists, and entreprenuers and connect them to services at the Reigonal Center as appropriate.
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