I would like to start of being saying how amazing of an experience it was to travel all the way to Washington DC and help out with those less fortunate. Before this year I never thought too much about the issue of homelessness. My major being geography I naturally gravitated towards environmental issues instead of social. This experience opened my eyes to things I never thought about.

Before the trip I tried to educate myself about the issue of homelessness by reading newspaper articles. Once on the trip I realized how little that did for me. It is one thing to read about the statistics of an issue and another to go out into the world and connect with the real people. During the dinner I sat with Courtney and talked to a man and a woman. Together we did a puzzle, but also chatted. While i was talking to the woman, Josie, I realized how happy she was despite how little she actually had. It still shocks me how some one can live in sch a materialistic world and be content with their life even though all of their material possessions are carried with them in a couple of shopping bags.

One of the other experiences I enjoyed was visiting Anacostia. First of all, Anacostia is not a place many people got to while visiting the DC area. It does not have the beautiful buildings and high class stores as other parts of the city, but one thing I noticed there that I saw lacking in other parts of the city was a sense of community. While crossing one of the roads our group got yelled at by a cross gaurd for crossing when the light said not to even though there were no cars coming. Even though we all laughed about it afterwards it was really nice to see how much that cross gaurd cared about the kids in the school. People warned me how dangerous the area was and how not to speak to locals. However, on our first trip there we got lost on the bus. Other passengers on the bus were more than happy to help us and after a few minutes the entire front of the bus was involved in a discussion of exactly were we needed to go. Another thing that happened was that people made eye contact with me while walking on the street. We walked pretty much everywhere we went and all the other pedestrains in the other parts of the city seemed to be in their own world. The only people who would talk to us were the homeless. People on the streets of Anacostia seemed friendlier and were taling to many of the people they passed by.

One of the organzations we worked with in Anacostia was the Southeast Family Center. They dealt with emergancy rent assistance, which is one of the big issues in homelessness. While working with this organization we stepped back a bit from working one on one with the community and got to see the numbers. It was interesting to see how high rent really was and how much of a problem it is. rent should only cost 1/3 of a household's income, but these people were spending way more than that. It really woke me up on how the government needs to do more to make sure people are provided with affordable housing.

Overall the best part of the experience was getting to know my group members better. I learned how crazy Linda is and how Brittany seems to have the most sense of anyone I know, and how to correctly pronounce Shanaka's name.