Cycles of Risk
People who grew up in precarious home environments are more likely to raise children in similar contexts, although that’s not necessarily their intention. The risk factors associated with homelessness are especially dangerous in this way; they get passed down generationally. Studies have found a strong relationship between the amount of childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction that homeless parents experienced and the amount that their children were experiencing. Poverty has also been also associated with child maltreatment, indicating that young people are growing up exposed to the same risks their homeless parents did.
For example, women who were abused as children are more likely to become targets for violence as adults through no fault of their own. If they have children with abusive partners, then their children are at risk for poverty, abuse, residential instability, foster care placement, and many other predictors of future homelessness, creating a cycle of risk that’s extremely difficult to break out of.
The Toiletries Delivery is enabling a couple of our HACA members to build, test, and develop a toiletries delivery service that fills the gaps they see in the existing homelessness system. This process is helping us understand how we can proactively enable people experiencing homelessness to help themselves by developing opportunities for them to help their community.
The Toiletries Delivery is enabling a couple of our HACA members to build, test, and develop a toiletries delivery service that fills the gaps they see in the existing homelessness system. This process is helping us understand how we can proactively enable people experiencing homelessness to help themselves by developing opportunities for them to help their community.
Service Design Hustle
The Service Hustle for Homelessness brought together 40 design professionals along with 20 people with lived experience of homelessness in Austin for a weekend of explorative ideation, prototyping, and concept development. Participants used human-centered design principles to design services that could support people experiencing homelessness in new, innovative ways.
By the end of the weekend, participants had generated six viable service solutions to tangibly help improve the homelessness experience. They also walked away with a new, evidenced understanding of homelessness and design in Austin.
Impact:
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Connecting the design and street communities helps to forge relationships that may not have happened otherwise.
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Getting professionals together with people in the homelessness system for a weekend of exploration has allowed us to explore and prototype many more ideas and concepts than we otherwise could.
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Six service concepts to help improve the homeless experience have been built out and vetted to the degree that others can easily support the existing teams, come up with their own similar ideas, or pick them up where they left off.
Presentations
Download the following presentations to see some of the prototypes developed at the Service Design Hustle.
Resource Kiosk
The homeless community is dealing with the lack of current, trustworthy information.
Our proposal is a crowdsourced kiosk and website that collects information from members of the homeless community about services that are available to them. This allows members to gain information without losing independence.
Lockers on Wheels
Storage is a struggle.
A place to keep your things is essential to gaining and maintaining a sense of normalcy.
Zine and Videos
Service Hustle Zine
The Service Hustle Zine is a booklet of various topics associated with homelessness. Put together for the Service Design Hustle event, the zine contains serious information, but it is presented in a colorful, handmade way. These issues included in the zine are:
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Transportation
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Staying Housed
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Getting Employed
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Safety
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Homelessness Awareness
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Storage
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Relaxation
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Pets
Flip through the zine and read about the way these topics may affect people experiencing homelessness on a regular basis.