Name: Stevie Harris

Social Justice Group: Homelessness in NYC (A)

Date of Fieldwork: January 17, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Marcia Flores, Advocates for Children of New York

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

On Friday the 17th me and my group interviewed Marcia Flores. Marcia Flores works for AFC (Advocates for Children of New York) and for Project LIT. At AFC she focuses on educational rights for children as well as partnering with homeless shelters and doing press interviews regarding her knowledge and expertise in her field. Our interview with her was over zoom and it took 31 minutes and 46 seconds.
We mainly asked Marcia about the causes/effects of homelessness and what NYC government should do to help decrease homelessness. She said that one of the main reasons people are living on the streets is because they cannot afford housing, especially with young children. She also said that a lot of homeless children that she works with are immigrants or migrants who do not speak English, therefore making the process of trying to find affordable housing ten times harder. She said that, yes mental health can cause homelessness but not as much as you think. Most homeless people suffering from mental illness are the people you see walking to school or on the train, the people making themselves known, who people like Eva Pinkley, who we did an earlier interview on, are trying to get out of the streets and into shelters with good mental health services. But the people Marcia works with are the people you don’t see. People couch surfing and living in shelters. Those people make up the majority of NYCS homeless community. Marcia also told us that being homeless as a child is almost a lifelong sentence of struggle. If you were homeless as a child but have just rented an apartment with your savings it seems like you will not have to worry about not having a home anymore, right? However, no one will hire you if you were homeless, even if that was 10+ years ago, therefore you cannot get a job, will not be able to pay rent, and will end up homeless once more. Marcia believes that NYCS government should hire more bilingual teachers as well as assigning children to schools that are close to their shelters or living location. She thinks that if that gets done New York’s 146,000 homeless children will have a better chance at a successful education, and hopefully future.