Name: Stevie Harris

Social Justice Group: Homelessness in NYC (A)

Date of Fieldwork: December 17, 2024

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Eva Pinkley, Advocate for homelessness

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

I interviewed Eva Pinkley in order to learn more about homelessness in NYC. Eva Pinkley works for a non profit organization who help homeless people over the course of many years. The organization focuses on building trust with the homeless community and mostly helps people with addiction or mental/physical trauma.

Eva does field work every single day across all the boroughs and she believes that racial discrimination definitely plays a large role in who lives on the streets. She believes that 99% of New York City’s homeless are non white (not a backed up fact.) She also believes that the main cause for homelessness is mental and physical trauma, and the fact that most communities do not have access to good mental health care. She thinks that if New York City’s government made mental healthcare free and advertised it more New York’s homeless population would decrease rapidly.