Students Help the Homeless
By Kyle Warneck
Staff Writer

While some students lament the isolation of the Pomona bubble, others are working to burst that bubble and are becoming active in surrounding communities. In the fall of this year, Pomona students David Henderson '05 and Michael Gechter '05 formed SHARE Low-Income Services. SHARE is a student group dedicated to providing services to unhoused people and those at risk of being unhoused in the Pomona and Ontario areas. They argue that one of the biggest problems unhoused individuals face is a lack of information. Simply having access to the internet and the skills necessaryto do research can make a big difference. SHARE puts those in need in touch with individual case workers to help close this information gap.

"The most important thing is access to information . . . there's a gap and students can bridge that gap" Henderson said.

To accomplish that goal, SHARE has provided a wide range of services. The group routinely provides everything from resumé and job search assistance to contacting lawyers and helping clients apply for benefits. They pride themselves on working with individual clients' needs. They assign individual case workers to every client. These case workers can fill a variety of holes depending on the individual's need. The group is built largely on the strength of its caseworkers. The students involved make it clear that they see this as more of a job than a one-time volunteering opportunity. That commitment has kept the group going.

Despite its relative youth, SHARE is already making an impact on local communities. SHARE places students in homeless shelters and at an outreach provider four days a week. The walk-in program has as many as 15 clients per day and the shelter program services over 50 individuals in the Pomona area. All this is done by a dedicated group of 16 caseworkers from the Claremont Colleges. The commitment is striking. Henderson and Gechter have worked on a shoe string budget and a personal copier to produce scores of weekly employment listings, catalogues of benefits, and directories of local services. One of Pomona's most ambitious outreach programs, it is run out of the dorms in Aethern Court, where the two founders live. When asked about the programs ambition Gechter reported humbly, "I find it rewarding."

Case worker Brynne Keith-Jennings '04 says, "It's inspiring to see how students can run an organization like this on their own."

Gechter and Henderson admit that it has not been easy to establish the program. Henderson says he is continually fighting stereotypes. The two admit that at first it was hard to get organizations to take them seriously. They say this has been the hardest part of the program.

The two of them have struggled to secure permanent access to the three locations they now serve. After presenting the program to one service provider, Henderson said that he was told he could go pass out packages of soap instead. He adds, "It is so unlike what community organizations expect from students."

The students say that they too have learned from the experience. "I've worked with houselessness for a while, but I'm always surprised at the competence and educational achievements of my clients. Very few of the clients have anything short of a high school diploma and most have vocational training or some college . . . one even had a masters degree." It is a startling reminder that houselessness is a shockingly frequent experience. The pair expresses frustration at the services available. They point to the big successes they have had with minor levels of support. Often a well written resumé or available employment listings are all it takes. "It's a testament to the shortage of services," Henderson argues, "it seems like we're the only one trying to provide them."

Even in its short existence, it is already clear that SHARE is making a difference. When I asked if they had a success story they could share, Gechter eagerly exclaimed, "Oh . . . there's a spread sheet." Their statistics show clients involved in the program at some shelters getting full time employment at three times the rate the shelter had before. They have over 25 clients who have left shelters and found homes while working with the program. The two students point to individual stories as a way to explain the group's success. One client, Robert, was a 19-year-old living in a shelter in Pomona. He was living with a relative and became unhoused. In the process of losing his home, he lost contact with his parole officer who was being replaced for the third time that year. He paid his fine and completed the remainder of his community service, but had no one to show it to. When he started working with SHARE, the man was afraid to apply for food stamps or other benefits because he thought there might be a warrant out for his arrest. SHARE learned that there was indeed a warrant out for his arrest and managed to put the man in contact with the lawyer whom the court had appointed for him without his knowledge. SHARE arranged for Robert to meet with his lawyer and go back to court with letters of recommendation and verification of his story. The judge not only dismissed the warrant, but also ruled that these items showed substantial improvement and fulfilled the conditions of his parole. These sorts of stories are what Gechter and Henderson say SHARE is all about. These problems are very important, but rarely fall under the rubric of other service providers.

Caseworkers described the importance they feel their work has: "I wanted to do something where I could feel like I was making changes in my community . . . I wanted to do something direct," Keith-Jennings said. After so much success this year, Henderson and Gechter are already making plans to continue providing services over the summer and into next year.