Community within Single-Site Permanent Supportive Housing: Perspectives and Experiences from Staff and Residents at St. Mary’s House

This thesis examines how community develops and is experienced among staff and residents of St. Mary’s House, a single-site permanent supportive housing program modeled in the Housing First approach. Supportive housing modeled in the Housing First approach has been gaining prominence in recent decades as an effective resource for managing chronic homelessness nationwide. Despite this, limited attention has been given to the experiences of those being housed. In particular, there is a dearth of research on the experiences of community within single-site supportive housing and the perspectives of residents remain marginalized in the policy discourse. My thesis begins with a critical examination of chronic homelessness. I argue that federal level neoliberal policies produce the structural circumstances for chronic homelessness to exist as well as housing interventions that displace attention from these structural causes. Within this frame, the rise of the Housing First approach is complexly enmeshed within a rationale that problematizes the visibility and costs associated with chronic homelessness rather than basic commitments to the poor. Utilizing a collaborative methodology founded in the principles of participatory action research (PAR), I conducted four months of field work at St. Mary’s House. I spent the majority of this time participating and observing in the daily milieu of St. Mary’s House and conducting interviews with supportive services staff and residents. In addition, I utilized photovoice as a visual tool to explore community from the perspectives of residents. All project data was analyzed through a grounded theory framework with feedback from the program director of St. Mary’s House. Emerging themes were then theoretically developed by concepts of sense of community, place making, and habitus. Findings from this research are developed three different ways. First, I examine the processes of community organization at St. Mary’s House. This analysis sheds light on the ways in which the service arrangement between staff and residents structures the parameters with which social interactions are organized and community participation is produced. Second, I analyze the dimensions of experiences at St. Mary’s House and the structural challenges to building community through four aspects that I distinguish as (1) surveillance, (2) resident proximity to one another, (3) resident “exits,” and (4) the service provider/recipient paradigm. For each aspect I demonstrate how the tensions that impact residents’ experiences stem from components of the service arrangement. Third, I present resident generated photovoice material through three themes: (1) depictions of home, (2) participation in neighborhood, and (3) solidarity in homelessness. I discuss how these themes illustrate the capacity of participants as active and resilient community members. I argue that residents’ lived experiences, largely unfamiliar to service providers, are valuable for more broadly conceiving what constitutes community at St. Mary’s House, and could be used for informing related services and programming. This thesis concludes with recommendations for building community at St. Mary’s House and considerations for permanent supportive housing programming

Process design for cooperation

Bakalářská práce se věnuje problematice procesu kooperace odběratele s více než dvaceti dodavateli. Předmětem práce je analýza dodavatelského řetězce dodavatelů kooperací a dále analýza kooperací samotných. Analýza je provedena především metodou SWOT analýzy. Výstupy této analýzy jsou v návrhové části práce zmapovány metodou procesních map a vytváří nový zlepšený návrh procesu kooperace. Ekonomické hodnocení práce hodnotí navrhovaná opatření dle hrubého odhadu a vytváří hrubou představu o výnosnosti investic do zlepšení procesu kooperace.The bachelor's thesis deals with the problem about process of cooperation of one company with more than twenty other suppliers. The subject of the work is the analysis of the supply chain of suppliers of cooperation and further the analysis of the cooperations themselfs. The analysis is performed mainly by the SWOT analysis method. The outputs of this analysis are mapped in the design part of the work by the method of process maps and creates a new improved design of the cooperation process. The economic evaluation of the work evaluates the proposed measures according to a rough estimate and creates a rough idea of the profitability of investments in the cooperation process.

Snug Fit Crescent Wrench

The most commonly used brand of adjustable wrench, a Crescent Wrench, dates back to the early nineteen hundreds. The tolerances associated with the adjustable wheel used by the most common adjustable wrench designs allow the position of the lower jaw to vary while using the tool. These undesired fluctuations in the position of the lower jaw make it difficult to adjust the wrench to the desired position and keep it in position once the desired position is set. The proposed adjustable wrench design addresses the tolerance issues by constraining the lower jaw with a new mechanism. The mechanism makes minor sacrifices in simplicity to attain advantages in practicality. (Content removed due to patent of design.) In addition to the competitive advantages offered by the proposed adjustable wrench design, the ANSI standard strength rating for existing adjustable wrenches is maintained. The proposed adjustable wrench will likely cost more than standard adjustable wrenches, but the design upgrades appear to greatly outweigh the minor price increase. These design improvements benefit every kind of user, from a handyman to a mechanic. For these reasons, it is apparent that the proposed design successfully improves upon the design of a standard adjustable wrench

Shaping Diversity Into the Brain’s Form and Function

The brain contains a large diversity of unique cell types that use specific genetic programs to control development and instruct the intricate wiring of sensory, motor, and cognitive brain regions. In addition to their cellular diversity and specialized connectivity maps, each region’s dedicated function is also expressed in their characteristic gross external morphologies. The folds on the surface of the cerebral cortex and cerebellum are classic examples. But, to what extent does structure relate to function and at what spatial scale? We discuss the mechanisms that sculpt functional brain maps and external morphologies. We also contrast the cryptic structural defects in conditions such as autism spectrum disorders to the overt microcephaly after Zika infections, taking into consideration that both diseases disrupt proper cognitive development. The data indicate that dynamic processes shape all brain areas to fit into jigsaw-like patterns. The patterns in each region reflect circuit connectivity, which ultimately supports local signal processing and accomplishes multi-areal integration of information processing to optimize brain functions

A Place to Live: a Housing Community for Chronically Homeless

Fair Park has grown since its inception in 1886 from 80 to 277 acres at the expense of the South Dallas community. The removal of neighborhoods for the expansion of the park has resulted in a lack of housing in the surrounding area, which has further increased the number of chronically homeless people in the neighborhood. A Place to Live is a permanent supportive housing community focusing on restoring affordable housing to the Fair Park area

A Brief History of Chronic Homelessness in the United States

Chronic homelessness has become an established part of the American landscape over the last four decades. Housing First, an approach to ending homelessness that centers around providing housing to those experiencing homelessness quickly without time limits or conditions, has been gaining prominence since the 1990’s as an effective resource for managing chronic homelessness nationwide. Success of the Housing First approach has been primarily measured in resident retention rates and cost-benefit analysis while limited attention has been given to the experiences of those being housed. In particular, research on the experiences of community within single-site supportive housing modeled in the Housing First approach remains underdeveloped, and the perspectives of residents remains marginalized in the policy discourse. To address the dearth of resident perspectives within the literature as well contribute to the policy discourse, I collaboratively involved staff and residents of St. Mary’s House – a local single-site supportive housing program, in a project designed to understand how sense of community is created within this housing model. During this process I became particularly interested in understanding the nature and “normalization” of chronic homelessness. In this presentation I share my research on chronic homelessness, specifically focusing on the contemporary history of homelessness through three chronologically ordered timeframes, in which I argue that the construction, proliferation, as well as current strategies of management, have been widely shaped by neoliberal economic policies. I propose that the national approaches to ending homelessness, such as Housing First and permanent supportive housing modeled it the Housing First approach, serve to manage the consequences of institutionalized neoliberal policies rather than ameliorate the structural inequalities that continue to reproduce chronic homelessness as a phenomenon

Process design for cooperation

The bachelor's thesis deals with the problem about process of cooperation of one company with more than twenty other suppliers. The subject of the work is the analysis of the supply chain of suppliers of cooperation and further the analysis of the cooperations themselfs. The analysis is performed mainly by the SWOT analysis method. The outputs of this analysis are mapped in the design part of the work by the method of process maps and creates a new improved design of the cooperation process. The economic evaluation of the work evaluates the proposed measures according to a rough estimate and creates a rough idea of the profitability of investments in the cooperation process

Raw material planning processes

This diploma thesis deals with the analysis and design of the planning process in the company John Crane a.s. in Lutín. In the introductory theoretical part, the author describes the theoretical basis for the elaboration of a detailed analysis of the planning process, as well as for the creation of a design and implementation plan for a new solution. In the analytical part, the author describes the current situation in the company, then through multicriteria analysis compares specific planning processes and tries to reveal their weaknesses and opportunities for improvement. In the design part, the author describes the new planning process and uses the project to create a plan for its implementation in the company

Architecture and the marvelous: The incorporation of the marvelous in American architecture from Monticello to Disneyland

Disneyland is an architectural marvel that can be understood and appreciated as part of the rich and broad history of the marvelous in architecture: A history of the marvelous in architecture that can be followed back in history to the first mention of The Seven Wonders of the ancient world. As an American architectural marvel Disneyland is also unique and it stands apart from architectural marvels before it, particularly outside of modern America, while making a unique contribution to the marvels that have followed it, both in America and abroad. To understand Disneyland\u27s unique and ultimately pivotal position as an architectural marvel, first, a broad, varied and significant history of the positive pursuit of the marvelous in architecture must be established, Next, the emergence and development of a unique strain of the marvelous in America, including the marvelous in American architecture, should be developed that is indebted to, but distinct from its European precedents. Finally, the tentative emergence of the American marvelous in architecture at examples such as Monticello and the Columbian Exposition of 1893 will be shown to emerge in its fullest form for the first time at Disneyland in 1955. At Disneyland, the marvelous is fully secularized and incorporated by business in the making of a place where the pleasure of the consumption of the marvelous is paramount to the design and purpose of its architecture