From Homeless To Empowered: A Participatory Methods Response To Multiple Oppressions

Abstract

This paper describes a participatory research/evaluation (PR/PE) project that has been underway for two years with a group of women placed in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) system. Prior to the mandate for welfare recipients to align with TANF, fifteen women (the subjects of this project) were homeless in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago has been a center for African American Community organizers and adult educators to embark on the co-learning experience that helped community members “read their own world” Curry, 2002, p.71). The participants became acquainted with one another through the TANF designated housing arrangements; they formed a support group initially, and this has evolved into a self and community development action agenda enabled through participatory methods. This particular agenda is centered on individuals taking responsibility for accommodating issues that plague everyday citizens; issues such as childcare, transportation, mandated employment, and training programs that emerge in the midst of the severe dislocation of federal and state welfare reforms and the bureaucracy that accompanies them.