I recall the excitement I felt when I first realized I wanted to go to social work school to “change the world.” I recall the hope when I finally got a job through transitioning from my unpaid internship to a poorly paid position at a hospital. I felt that I could at least help people. However, the burnout came quickly, which I initially blamed on the long hours and mountains of paperwork, until it finally dawned on me that my unhappiness was mostly from being a cog in the wheel of a system that boiled down to saving money over saving lives.
My passion to “change the world” soon drained, and it became a job that barely paid the bills. The pressure to discharge patients as fast as possible, keep the assembly line of people going or nag ailing patients to pay their unpaid bills like a debt collector was not what I signed up for. I realized I had become part of the oppressive system that maintains the helplessness and hopelessness of those we purportedly try to help.
I felt powerless, like all the work I was doing was simply putting band aids on gaping wounds that needed more to truly heal. This isn’t an uncommon situation when you work in helping professions, particularly in social work or human service fields.
When I see the city outreach workers — specifically the HOPE team, who are part of the United Care Team assigned to offer shelter options — show up at an encampment sweep, I hold some hope (pun intended) that they will be able to provide what people need. Too often this isn’t the case, since there’s simply not enough shelter to offer people. Seattle and King County have about 5,300 emergency shelter beds available year round, while the 2024 Point-In-Time count reported the number of unhoused people in the area is over 16,000.
Zoom into what this means at the many sweeps we witness each week: People are displaced without the resources or support they want and need. Zoom out, and we’re told false proclamations from the city it has “helped” all the people it made disappear through the relentless sweeps.
How does one whose job it is to help get folks inside maintain any sense that they are actually helping, instead of providing cover for the city to force people to “move along”? How does one justify their role in violently sweeping people and colluding with police when they know there are not enough resources or options to offer what people need?
From what I’ve observed and learned, people displaced without a referral are told to call in the morning to ask if anything is now available. Whether they have a working phone or access to one isn’t addressed when they are given a number on a business card. And yes, I’ve also been in earshot of calls HOPE workers receive at other sweeps, telling the previously swept person, “I’m sorry, no, we don’t have any tiny house village spots available still — but keep calling me to check.”
In the meantime, that person hopes to not be swept again and again.
I’ve also heard the age-old easy route, where these outreach workers simply blame individuals for their circumstances; if only they made “better choices,” or “it’s for their own good” because “no one should be living this way” or “they refuse any help.”
And I admit, when I’ve worked as a social worker, I’ve done the same, justifying the harm I’m supporting by blaming the individual for making the “wrong choice.” They didn’t want to accept the options I offered or didn’t care to listen to what I felt was “best for them.” So instead of accepting their autonomy and self-direction or delving deeper into why the options I offered were not what they wanted or needed, I simply pathologized them as the problem. This dehumanization only helps us feel superior and avoid questioning the problematic system that we ourselves promote.
To be fair, those who signed up to work these jobs probably began as I did: truly wanting to make a positive difference. They wanted to help the thousands living unhoused outside. Yet the troubling fact is that the system they are working for not only refuses to invest more of the funds sorely needed to actually house people but also perpetuates additional harm by displacing and sweeping people. When faced with that reality, how do people in these jobs push against it instead of succumbing to that system?
I was unhappy in that social work job because I was dehumanizing myself as I dehumanized those who I felt powerless to help. Feeling like I was losing my humanity jolted me awake and led me to radical self-assessment, radical learning (and de-learning) and realization of the ways our society is set up to limit how we can care for each other.
Now I am fortunate to connect with others who’ve also realized this and want to reimagine how we care for one another through abolitionist approaches. We need to prioritize approaches that build mutual aid networks that are informed by our unhoused neighbors and focus on how we can infiltrate and disrupt these violent systems. I have recovered some of that hopefulness I had when I was just out of social work school, but now in a different way.
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SW is a volunteer with Stop the Sweeps Seattle.
Read more of the Sept. 4–10, 2024 issue.