Louison House, North Adams, MA
I spent this summer working at Louison House, a private, 501(c)(3) non-profit Transitional Housing residence for the homeless in North Adams, Massachusetts. Louison House was founded in 1990, and has assisted over 5,000 individuals and families in overcoming homelessness. Its current location in North Adams comprises a men’s dorm, several women’s rooms, and two family units. It can house up to 22 individuals at a time (typically for a few months each) while they find jobs and housing. Louison House helps its residents achieve their most critical goals, such as resolving poor credit histories, settling DCF cases, and writing strong résumés. However, it does not have the resources to deal with serious active addictions.
The front office is the hub of most day-to-day staff-resident interaction, and is the place I spent the most time. It is staffed 24/7, typically by one person at a time, and deals with residents’ needs, incoming calls, and anyone who walks in the front door. As part of my immersion into the role of the Louison House staff, I was given the opportunity to complete two “pre-intakes.” When calls come from (or on behalf of) potential residents, the front office staff collect information to complete “pre-intake” forms, and use this information to assess the caller’s situation and (typically) to refer them to other appropriate facilities. Nothing else I did this summer made the experiences of the homeless quite as personal as these individuals: a young mother (and daughter) dealing with a county sanctioning, and a middle-aged woman facing a recent eviction. Both, as is often the case, were struggling with various mental health troubles, including, in particular, depression. This ties in to my primary area of academic interest—and my major at Williams—psychology.
Although it took me many years to realize it, my foremost intellectual fascination has long been with psychology. In regard to this, I saw my summer at Louison House as an opportunity to learn about the mind—not exactly by analyzing, but simply by being present—in an environment of more critical psychological challenges than those faced by most Williams students. The individuals I talked to in completing pre-intakes, as well as the newer residents at Louison House, seemed to be wondering many of the same things that Williams students wonder: “Where do I go next?” “What has been the point of it all?” “Why is it so hard to be who I want to be?”; but without the support structures of housing, reliable nourishment, and basic medical care, or even (in many cases) friends, role models, and psychiatric help. This brings me back to the role of the front office staff.
The front office staff help promote the psychological stability of the residents by keeping them focused on working through the legal and civil steps needed to get on their feet. This may mean talking to landlords and DCF caseworkers, making payments on debts, getting to court, or just filling out job and housing applications. In residents’ previous unstable or isolated settings, some of these steps might have seemed too frustrating to pursue as consistently as is necessary. The front office staff also converse freely with residents about the residents’ conduct, their options, their financial situation, and whatever else they deem important. This simple opportunity for residents to regularly discuss their lives with dependable, well-informed social workers may be the single most valuable service Louison House provides.
Although I was able to witness these goings on, helping the residents in these ways requires additional training. However, I was able to directly assist the residents in some ways. In particular, I worked with them to help each other move into apartments. Louison House provides residents with furniture (as well as bedding and other necessities) when they move out. A couple of able-bodied residents and I carried furniture for the summer move-outs, and at other times picked up new donations to keep for future move-outs. I also helped pick up food donations two or three times a week from Cumberland Farms and Walmart, which provide ample lunch food and frozen meat for the residents.
Besides these jobs, I spent the majority of my time on the computer updating resource guides, creating stats sheets, and doing other miscellaneous tasks. However, as I mentioned, I was placed right next to the front desk for many of these jobs, which gave me the opportunity to observe the staffs’ interactions with residents.
Louison House provides a variety of vital services to the homeless of Northern Berkshire region, through direct assistance and phone conversations. As long as assistance from the general population remains meager, the work of shelters will remain insufficient, making every resource center or shelter precious in Rebuilding Hope (Louison House’s motto) for each new homeless person. Going forward, this problem may become increasingly serious if locals’ connection to reality decreases with the rise of screen-based socialization. This phenomenon may put many people in a psychological position more vulnerable to taking a turn for the worse, and subsequently leave them unable to cope with real-life problems requiring full-time attention. It may also decrease the already meager support from the general population, both by separating us from our local reality and by promoting addictive distractions. These issues present yet another example of the unforeseen side effects of the explosion of “communication” technology in this country.
This summer thus brought my attention to the importance of including thought for psychological stability in our conversations dominated by talk of freedom and equal opportunity. It appears that such stability is in rapid decline, as demonstrated by skyrocketing rates of MDD, for instance, yet its role in a functional society seems to be largely overlooked. Not only could this oversight lead to an increase in the young homeless population and a continued increase in drug addictions and suicide, as well as loss of touch with reality in those whose help is most needed, it seems reasonable that it could play a key role in the deterioration of the moral foundations of our society as a whole.
In light of these thoughts arising from my summer at Louison House, I may focus my exploration of psychology at Williams on understanding psychological stability. I want to consider what factors create mentally stable individuals and what modern forces are destabilizing us. Most importantly, I hope to look beyond the achievement of circumstantial mental stability in individuals—since their means could theoretically be undermining our society’s ability to produce a stable majority—to consider what norms a society could be rooted in that would help uphold the psychological stability of all of its citizens.
I want to thank all donors to the Williams ASIP program—especially the Kraft Family—and of course the Williams College ’68 Center for Career Exploration, for making my internship possible. As young adults, my fellow Williams students and I often cannot afford to work unpaid for a summer. Yet this is the time in our lives when we most need to be gaining experience, and sometimes that means prioritizing an internship over money. You make this possible for us. In my case, not only did you allow me to pursue my interests, you provided to the understaffed Louison House an additional full-time support staff that they simply not have afforded to pay. I am confident that they would also like to extend a warm ‘thank you’ to you all.