Opinion
JENNIFER CALFAS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH
and DEREK WOLFE
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LEV FACHER
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s editorial board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, February 9, 2015
T
he Robert J. Delonis Center
for the homeless moved to
its current location on West
Huron Street 11
years ago. Thanks
to
$5.5
million
in private dona-
tions, along with
an additional $3
million in county
and
city
allo-
cated funds, the
Delonis
Center
became a progres-
sive and unique
hybrid center of
general residency
and warming shelter. It practices
a “housing first” initiative, which,
according to Ellen Schulmeister, the
Delonis Center’s Executive Direc-
tor, is a philosophy that views the
acquisition of permanent housing as
“the big answer” to ending the often
perpetual cycle of homelessness.
Permanent supported housing is
a different style of care for homeless
populations than the traditional,
mission-style shelter, or shelters
that merely provide food and short-
term, temporary housing for the
homeless. According to John Schip-
pers, Delonis’ Director of Programs,
this model leaves little opportunity
for societal ascension. Schippers, an
incredibly passionate psychologist,
describes this method as a “come
in, get fed, repeat as necessary,”
cookie-cutter tactic to combating
homelessness which “the literature
pretty clearly shows … perpetuates
homelessness.” Conversely, a “hous-
ing first” initiative seeks to empow-
er the homeless by providing them
with an individually formatted plan,
outlining the necessary steps need-
ed to achieve permanent residence.
At the Delonis Center, this key
program is called Income, Sav-
ings and Housing. The program is
centered on the individual, who
first meets with one of the Delo-
nis Center’s 12 case managers.
Each case manager is an educated
social worker; there is a base level
requirement of a bachelor’s degree
in social work, though many have
their Masters in Social Work. The
case workers act as triage special-
ists, measuring new patients’ needs
on a vulnerability scale, a combi-
nation of assessments based on
the person’s ability status and age,
among other factors. In doing so,
case workers seek to evaluate the
steps needed to navigate existing
bureaucratic structures in order to
establish some sort of income for
the person in question, and to estab-
lish a savings plan for whatever
income they’re eligible to receive.
To this effect, the Delonis Center’s
case managers are fixers; whatever
obstacles an individual has, they’ll
try to tackle them head-on.
“There are many barriers to
ending their homelessness and
we have to help them overcome
those,” Schippers said. “Everyone’s
got their own individual stories, so
everyone’s housing plan is unique.”
And sometimes that “unique hous-
ing plan” can mean that an individ-
ual must stay in the Delonis Center
general residential unit for longer
than the 90 days subsidized by the
government while they’re saving for
a security deposit on an apartment.
Though the Delonis Center must
rely on generous private donors
to pay for the differential in time,
Schippers said, “If you’re exiting
people in 90 days, all you’re doing is
sabotaging them, in my opinion. If
they’re working on a housing plan,
they get to stay.”
The construction of a shelter
which operates in this fashion was
a challenge for facilitators like
Schulmeister and Schippers, who
had to work at convincing the pub-
lic of the specific, systemic issues
facing the Ann Arbor area that per-
petuate homelessness in the com-
munity. When Schulmeister joined
the Center 17 years ago, she tried to
make this clear.
“I kept saying ‘the shelter is not
going to solve the problem. The
shelter is going to help the prob-
lem, but we need to have afford-
able housing.’ That was 17 years
ago. And we have not made a lot of
progress in affordable housing in
17 years.”
According to one report, the
monthly cost for a one-bedroom
apartment in Ann Arbor ranges
from $850-$1,200; for someone
with an entry level job, attempting
to gain footing after having been
homeless for a stretch of time, the
chance of finding a fiscally sustain-
able apartment in the area is bleak.
“There’s all these barriers to
getting housing. Not only is it not
affordable, but it’s also not acces-
sible,”
Schulmeister
lamented.
“We’re supposed to eliminate the
shelter stay… and just put people
into housing. Well you can’t do that
if you don’t have housing. So where
are we?”
Where are we? It seems the
answer is that we’re stuck within
yet another paradoxical circle,
unbreakable due to a system that
ostracizes homeless individuals by
not providing them with the sweep-
ing changes in advancement pro-
grams needed to catalyze upward
mobility. Schulmeister sees it as
a combination of factors, many of
which stem from the public, which
she considers to be “completely
oblivious” to the struggles that the
homeless face in this community.
“(Homelessness)
just
doesn’t
touch their life enough that they
choose to think about it or do
anything,” she told me. “Every-
thing about the public’s percep-
tion
exacerbates
the
problem.
But I don’t know how you ever
have everybody on the same page
about what to do. That seems
like
an
impossibility
to
me.”
Asking the public to make sense
of a population whose plights
are ever changing, whose chal-
lenges are innumerable, is dif-
ficult. “There’s an ebb and flow,”
Schulmeister said. “There’s always
a
new
twist.
There’s
always
something different.”
But in a society where value and
worth are placed on the positions
that people hold and how success-
ful they are in those positions, it
becomes castrating for those with
limited ability to reintegrate into
society. Especially into a society
which views them as lesser. This is
obvious, especially when consider-
ing the ways that the homeless are
ostracized and downtrodden. They
are affected by the way that public
opinion and housing systems have
created a palpable mental barrier
between society at large, and those
subjugated by it.
Delonis’ ISH program works dil-
igently towards empowering indi-
viduals, affirming their self-worth
through the tactical use of local
employment and housing resourc-
es. In order to house the homeless,
however, perhaps larger factors are
in need of reevaluation.
— Austin Davis can be reached
at austchan@umich.edu.
AUSTIN
DAVIS
Housing the homeless
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Aarica Marsh, Victoria Noble, Michael Paul, Allison Raeck,
Melissa Scholke, Michael Schramm, Matthew Seligman, Linh Vu, Mary Kate Winn,
Jenny Wang, Derek Wolfe
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
I
t recently came to my attention that
bars across the University campus have
drink menus that do not align with my
personal morals or the
morals of many friends
and mentors. Drinks such
as the Blowjob and Dirty
Girl Scout, among others,
play off of humor that is
in no way family friendly
but may be excusable for
certain eyes. Titles such
as these may make a res-
taurant only accessible to
adult eyes, but do not nec-
essarily cross a morally
impenetrable line in my view.
Reading further down the menu at Blue
Leprechaun on South University, I stumbled
across a drink called Statutory Grape. At the
time, I thought this drink was particular to
this bar, but soon discovered that many menus
on the University campus and in other cities
featured such an appalling item. This wave of
disappointment hit me around late September
last year and only escalated this past weekend
when my father was in town and had a harsh
reaction to such a feature as well.
As I have never been a victim of any sort of
sexual crime, I do not have the authority to
say what a drink name like this would spark
in me had I experienced such a traumatic
event. But I do know that to trivialize what
can be such a severe experience into a drink
name is beyond outdated and beyond disre-
spectful. After speaking with peers, mentors
and even the wait staff and general manager
of Blue Lep, I found that everyone was in a
relatively unanimous agreement: the drink
name should be removed. Some “inappropri-
ate” drinks I can let skate by, but others have
crossed a line that should never be crossed.
I met with Mike Gradillas, the general
manager of the Blue Leprechaun, expect-
ing a curmudgeon of a man who would not
be receptive to the idea at all. Instead, I
found the exact opposite in his character.
We carefully looked at each menu item, and
discussed the implications of each item and
what it could mean, who it could hurt, if the
wait staff could “handle” it and if they could,
“should” anyone be able to handle some-
thing unpleasant that could potentially be
a trigger? It is impossible to imagine what
everyone has gone through, what bizarre
or mundane words could propel someone
into reliving a terrible experience. But there
is a certain point where we, as upstanding
members of society, can speculate that the
drink “statutory grape” could be linked to an
unfortunate memory.
Dan Caldwell, a waiter at the Blue Lep,
made many poignant remarks on this subject.
He specifically stated, “You never know what
the people walking through your bar have
gone through.” Specifically with the drink
Statutory Grape, there is no reason why the
item must persist. In suggesting renaming
the drink, Gradillas said, “I don’t even need
a memory of it. It’s just not worth it.” So not
only is the name being eliminated, but also the
drink itself is being told off. Gradillas said, “I
do care about the image of the restaurant, but
on a more personal level, I am responsible.”
Gradillas claims that he had often ques-
tioned these off-putting titles, but had never
been approached by someone, so he never
made the move for change. Obviously, the
responsibility cannot solely lie in anyone’s
lap, but it does show how times can change
and the often times negative residue of the
past can stick.
“We are dealing with college, where there
is often times a fine line between having an
experience where someone may unfortu-
nately question whether or not an encounter
was rape,” Gradillas said.
Any restaurant, especially one so close
to a university, should not be making light
of an issue that is so prevalent on a col-
lege campus. Gradillas similarly took it
upon himself to change The Red Headed
Slut to The Red Head without any efforts
on my part. He also reminded me that if
a woman or man ever feels disrespected
by a client at the restaurant, they have
bouncers who are well equipped to remove
any individual.
Although most people with whom I have
spoken to agree at the obscenity of the title,
those playing devil’s advocate, bring up the
line that differentiates rape and statutory
Statutory Grape
rape. The legal dictionary defines
statutory rape as being, “… com-
mitted when an adult sexually pen-
etrates a person who, under the law,
is incapable of consenting to sex.
Minors and physically and mentally
incapacitated persons are deemed
incapable of consenting to sex
under rape statutes in all states.”
There is the case where a young
couple could be technically com-
mitting this crime even while hav-
ing consensual sex, however, this
is not always the case. As the legal
dictionary addresses, this offense
is serious and should in no way be
taken lightly.
This is not just an issue of femi-
nism; these experiences can hap-
pen to anyone. It is our duty as
students to call attention to these
issues
and
spread
awareness.
Often times it just takes one voice
to sway a cause. Although I have
only spoken with the Blue Lepre-
chaun, I imagine these drink items
will be evaporating quickly off of
university
campuses.
Although
students do not carry the solitary
responsibility to spark change,
we do have the youth and pas-
sion to speak out about causes of
any scale.
— Dani Vignos can be reached
at dvignos@umich.edu.
DANI
VIGNOS
I
t has been long suspected that the division of Ann Arbor’s wards
has lessened student influence in city politics. According to a
recent report by The Michigan Daily, the large concentration
of students who live on Central Campus and the immediate
surrounding area has been divided since 1967 into five pie-shaped
city wards, or representative districts, that converge at the center
of campus and span outwards. Seeing that no ward’s population
is comprised of over 29.4 percent University students, leaving no
ward with a student majority, the impact of the student vote in
city elections appears to be diminished. That said, the creation of a
student-majority city ward is not the right step to increase student
influence in Ann Arbor City Council decisions. Rather, a system that
encourages students to get involved in the city is a better-suited
solution moving forward.
Redrawing boundaries to create a student-
dominated ward would not be unprecedented.
The University of California, Berkeley student
population passed a measure last November
that created a student-majority district
in Berkeley. Burlington, VT, home of the
University of Vermont, recently announced a
new student ward, Ward 8, in which students
will make up 70 percent of the population.
A student-majority ward would bring
benefits to the student population and the city,
but is not a realistic solution for increasing the
student population’s political involvement for
local initiatives. The student population of the
University is just recently becoming politically
active in the local realm and experiences
constant population change with students
graduating each year. Of the 34,000 students
eligible to vote, only 7,000 are registered to do
so. In addition, out of those 7,000, only 1,900
voted in the past election. Therefore, if students
do not vote in a ward specifically devoted to
them, elections will remain an inaccurate
representation of the student population’s
concerns, meaning the issue remains unsolved.
Creating a student-majority ward should not
be a priority. Instead, the student population
needs to participate in city government at
an increased rate. Recently, tension between
students and the city has revolved around
issues of affordable housing, transportation
and taxes. If students carried more political
sway, some of these problems are more likely
to be solved. While the University is large and
may dissuade students from taking action in
order to solve important issues, if students
were more aware of the impact they could
make on city issues, it would bridge the gap
between the city and the University, one that
has grown and continues to do so.
To increase student involvement without
the creation of a student-majority ward, a
student committee should be formed within
the Office of Student Life. This committee
would help facilitate student gatherings
where City Council issues could be discussed.
These student leaders will run the meetings,
regulate debate and collect student opinions
to act as liaisons between students and City
Council members. City Council members
should make an effort to come to some of
these “town hall-esque” meetings and meet
with committee members on a regular basis
to hear student concerns and consider them
when making their decisions. This type of
forum would allow students to have the
opportunity to take leadership roles in the
city, become more involved with members of
the community beyond campus and become
real stakeholders in government decisions.
The opinions and solutions generated from
these forums will lead to informed City
Council decisions and a more accurate
representation of the student population.
“W
HAT?!”
That’s
usually the first
reaction people
give me when they
find out I grew up
without cable tele-
vision. The con-
versation
would
include
some,
“What did you do
then?”
and
the
occasional,
“Do
you
even
know
what ‘SpongeBob’
is?” The list goes on
between disbelief,
shock and inter-
rogating me to see how I lived my
unplugged life. It was as if they felt
sorry for me for missing references
and having a childhood that lacked
me sitting in front of a screen. I may
have had a lapse in cartoon knowl-
edge, and even today I still do, but
I like to think I turned out normal.
I was not really addicted to televi-
sion. Yes, I loved my basic shows like
“Arthur” and “The Simpsons,” but I
did not have Nickelodeon, Comedy
Central or Disney Channel. It made
me feel like some type of alien, a
minority that was not up to date on
the cool new shows with the pletho-
ra of channels at my whim.
Those that grew up without
TV can relate. Many of my friends
found it to be a blessing. We seemed
to spend more time outside, having
play dates with friends and reading
good books. In my family, we would
play softball in the backyard or bas-
ketball in the driveway after dinner
instead of plopping down in front of
the TV. We saw it as an occasional
privilege, rather than some amenity
that was always at our disposal for
our entertainment.
But now that beneficial detach-
ment is gone. It seems that those
born in the early ‘90s can still appre-
ciate a time when not everything was
plugged in. We were not surrounded
by technology in every realm, be it
school, home or relaxation. We were
not as dependent upon our devices,
but rather we were left to our own.
We grew up with cassette tapes, VHS
movies, Walkmans and the begin-
ning of cell phones. Slow and bulky,
those technologies were easy to put
away. If you wanted to call someone,
you actually had to know where they
were, none of this “Dude, where are
you?” If you wanted to check the
time, you looked at your watch. And
we definitely did not do the “pocket
dance” (front pocket, front pocket,
back pocket, back pocket, “found it!”)
to find our phones before we left the
house. Those born in the later ‘90s,
however, seemed to be “on” all of
the time.
Elementary-school
kids
have
the latest iPhones, video games
and computers. There was never a
“No Cell Phone” policy in my 5th-
grade classroom, but now there
is. Younger kids always need to
be on something, whether they
are playing a game, finding some
new
information
or
watching
some goofy video on YouTube. If
the devices are taken away, their
boredom increases and their atten-
tion span decreases. Short videos,
grabbing technology, flashy images
and modes of information are how
these children grew up learning to
read, write, listen and comprehend.
Those of the early ‘90s grew up dif-
ferently, and now there is a disjunc-
tion within our generation.
We are extremely social beings.
Anthropologically speaking, the
reason we have such large brains
could be due to the Social Brain
hypothesis. This states that ancient
human ancestors that began to live
in larger groups with patterns of
social structures showed greater
brain growth of the neocortex.
Humans need to be social. It is liter-
ally in our DNA. But trying a detox
every once in a while can help us
relax and disconnect from the rest
of the world and the websites and
devices connecting us all.
Can you appreciate the silence?
Have you spent time without your
computer, cell phone or TV for
more than a day? When was the
last time you wrote a paper or did
an assignment by hand? It is won-
derful never feeling like you have
to report to someone, check in on
the latest e-mails or texts. You even
have the chance to perfect your
penmanship! It takes a little time to
get used to, but that freedom — that
chance to focus on only what is in
front of you and not what is in your
pocket connecting you to someone
else — is wonderful.
— Sara Shamaskin can be
reached at scsham@umich.edu.
Growing up without TV
SARA
SHAMASKIN
Increasing student influence
Committee should be created to involve campus in city politics