Disruptive Solution

Why are we doing this?

Homelessness is a critical issue in our society today that demands an immediate and effective solution. The prevalent homelessness that exists in our society today undermines our recognition of the equality of man, reflecting society's inability to treat each citizen with respect and dignity. For this reason, we believe that it is important to provide the homeless with resources to improve their situation and bring awareness surrounding the issue to society at large. It is our responsibility to actively take action to attempt to bring an end to widespread homelessness as the stigma against the homeless is deeply ingrained in the minds of many individuals, and the efforts of the non-profit organizations is often not effective enough to resolve this problem.

Thinking in the perspective of Michael Adam

How do we do it?

In order to get the solution for our problem, first thing we needed to do was to find the cause of discrimination. We looked back to our story and asked ourselves, "Why was Michael Adam turned away by the restaurant?" He had no issue communicating with people and someone was willing to pay for his food. Obviously, turned out it was because Mr. Adam was not properly showered and dressed because of the poor condition he lived in. All he wanted was some food. Therefore we stared thinking, "What can we do to change the situation?" Is there something that can be done that would help prevent homeless being turned away? Then we started doing the five whys activity.

Five Whys

We tried to find the root cause by keep asking ourselves why, why are homeless not showered? Why do they not have access to the shower facilities? We ended up the the conclusion that some of us are still thinking it is unnecessary for homeless to clean themselves, some of us think homeless people do not deserve to be clean because they are poor and they do not have place to live in. This is awfully wrong!

"Five whys" activity

Thinking process part I

What

With the help of another group, we stared our opinion on how would we solve this very problem. The key is to ask "how might we provide homeless people a place where they can clean themselves up?". We came up with many ideas, as shown on the image one the left. We decided that the best way is to establish a public shower system.

How

We then discussed about the details need to execute the plan (shown on the right) figuring out some of the way's we'd think is vital to make our plan work.

Thinking process part II

Homeless is sad because he cannot clean himself

Homeless is happy because he is clean

What we finally get

The plan is to build public showers in organized areas. They are fairly easy to implement because it's like building a homeless center, and it will have huge effect on helping homeless people with their lives. The idea is that, if fully implemented, each of the public shower would have separate areas for men and women to show themselves. Each person would be provided with a private shower with a lockable door, and a small place where people can hang their cloths and keep them dry. A laundry room and a haircut place should be available at each public shower to provide homeless people with further help. Therefore we can offer homeless people a safe, private, and clean showering environment. We expect this project to be supported by the local government and our community. If the plan becomes successful, it would very effectively help homeless people solve their personal hygiene issue. The will reduce the chance of being turned away by restaurants when they try to ask for help. we are very excited because we want to see how this idea could have an impact on the discrimination in our modern society, we want to see more people are getting helped and see more happiness on their faces, we want to see this world to become a better place.

Take Action!

If you know anyone that working in an organization that helps homeless people, tell them about the idea! Help us make this plan come true.

PS: The day we share the prototype me and my partner were both absent, so this part is not available on our website.

Images taken by Charlie Quan

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