What’s the (Real) Problem? Thoughts on Planning Activist Efforts
The first thing you want to do when tackling climate change, gun violence, or sexual assault is to pick something you’ll focus on. No one person or group or coalition of groups could solve climate change or end human trafficking forever. Odds are good you have modest social change goals. That doesn’t matter. If you are starting small or going big, you still need to decide where you’ll focus your resources and why.
This post offers a couple of thoughts on how to decide what to focus on. You can’t start a program that will end homelessness or reverse the effects of anthropogenic climate change. But, you can tackle some small part of either problem. The trick is to figure out how best to focus your resources.
Why Does This Happen?
Not sure how to tackle a challenge? Start with exploring the problem. Why are there homeless people? Is it because of mental illness? Capitalism? Lack of personal responsibility? This is an exercise in focus, not a scientific exercise, so don’t worry so much about the data behind your answer. Just go with a concrete answer — Mental illness causes homelessness, some of it anyway.
Why does mental illness cause homelessness? This will take some deep thinking and probably some Internet research. You might find out that many mentally ill people descend into mental illness and lose their ability to hold a job without anyone around to help them, compel them to get counseling, or whatever.
Maybe the real cause is social isolation then? Why are people who end up homeless socially isolated? Many withdraw from society because of mental health issues or drug addiction, or both.
We come back to mental illness. Why didn’t homeless people with mental illness get help? They were socially isolated, too poor to avoid healthcare, maybe just unaware of what resources were available to help them.
Why is awareness so low? This might actually lead us to a workable idea. Maybe many people who know someone at risk of homeless don’t know this, or they just don’t know how to help. Before they realize their friend or relative is heading onto the streets, they are out on the streets. Now their problems get much harder to fix. Maybe not knowing what to do is the real reason why many homeless people end up in that situation. (Of course. a problem like homelessness has multiple contributing factors, but there’s nothing wrong with focusing on one or two at a time.)
Maybe some kind of education campaign for family and neighbors of people at risk of homelessness would help. You aren’t directly helping the homeless, but you are trying to reduce the number of people who end up homeless.
That’s just the crude outline of an idea, not a description of a prevention program. But, I hope you understand the structure and purpose of this technique.
The 5 Why Technique
By the way, what I just described is a version of the ‘5 Why’ Technique, a tool for creatively exploring a challenge. This technique comes from the business world, but it should be useful to social activists who want to explore social problems and figure out new ways to solve them. Likewise, if you want to improve the world, versus simply reducing a problem like homelessness, you might find a new and better approach by using the 5 Why Technique.
