The Nanny Diaries

5 Pages 1181 Words

Tell Them Who I AM


The book Tell Them Who I Am by Elliot Liebow really shed some light on why many people (mainly women in this study) are homeless. The book makes it very clear that homeless people just don’t have a place to live. Their not all drug users, alcoholics or thieves, they just don’t have a home. Liebow started this participation study after retiring from her job and volunteering at a shelter for homeless women. This book reveals the living conditions, friendships, health and other aspects of the homeless woman.
The beginning of the book (Part One) talks about how hard the living conditions were on the women. The shelters were exactly the quietest place to sleep. With many people sick, coughing kept many people awake. So fatigue was a major problem. On top of that, the shelters would close during the day which meant that the women would have to go into the streets and kill time for most of the day. I used to think that killing time would be easy for homeless people, but after reading this book I have changed that way of thinking.
When the women would leave the shelter they would have to find some place to stay. Where they would go and how far they would travel always depended on the weather. I have seen first hand that many of homeless would wander into vacant houses and onto property of other businesses. They would then get the police called on them which obviously makes all the homeless people look bad. I was once called to a vacant house during the winter where there were two homeless women and two homeless men sleeping. The owner had received a call from a neighbor stating they were in there. When I got there the owner was in his car and was very upset about this incident. I noticed several articles of clothing and belongings that mad it obvious that the homeless people had been in this house for several weeks. Keep in mind that this home had been vacant for several months and there was no intention on the...