Programming at p:ear in Portland promotes self-esteem, which is critical to psychological well-being, according to research by a PSU grad student
Jonny Perez was deeply depressed, feeling as if he were “nothing” when, two years ago, he first walked into p:ear, a nonprofit in Old Town that offers mentorship and activity-based programming to homeless youths.
Perez was 24 at the time and had been homeless for six years.
“I felt like I was a bother to society, and like I didn’t want to live for a while,” Perez said, “and then I started coming around (to p:ear), and then I started coming around more and more often.”
Today, Perez feels a lot better about himself and his future. He has an apartment and is taking classes at Portland Community College while working toward becoming a park ranger. The transformation, Perez said, was sparked at the top of Mount St. Helens during a field trip with the organization.
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it, and I made it up there, and I realized, like, dude, you did this! And if you could do this, you could do anything!”
The type of confidence-building programming offered at p:ear is exactly what homeless youths need to feel better psychologically, suggests the findings of a study published earlier this year in the Journal of Community Psychology.
The study’s author, Portland State University graduate student Katricia Stewart, said she wanted to see how factors that are known to contribute to psychological well-being in adults apply to homeless youths because very little research has been done in that area.
“You need a lot of things to truly have a high psychological well-being,” she explained. “But what we looked at was, with all these factors considered together, which one stands out as the most important?”
Stewart and her research assistants interviewed 100 homeless youths they connected with through p:ear. Some had been involved with p:ear’s programming for years, and others had just walked in the door for the first time. They asked youth about factors such as their level of optimism, mental health, sense of community and empowerment.
What Stewart found was that self-esteem stood out as having the highest correlation with higher scores of psychological well-being among the youths.
Past research has found that unhoused youths have lower self-esteem than their housed counterparts, making programming focused on building self-esteem particularly crucial to positive development.
Stewart hopes her study will help inform the development of programs aimed at helping youths on the streets in the future.
A 23-year-old who asked that we call her “Nica” said that when she first came to p:ear, she was newly homeless and just trying to survive.
“I was feeling really scared and like I didn’t know how to help myself,” she said. “I just hated myself for becoming homeless in the first place.”
For Nica, it was p:ear staff’s compassion and understanding that really made the difference. They listened to her vent when she needed to, which helped bring her out of her shell, she said.
The day Street Roots met Nica, she came into p:ear excitedly talking with others about her new job at Carl’s Jr.
She said these days, “I’m super confident, I have been getting jobs, doing things that I love. I just feel better about myself in the sense that I can actually provide for myself if I want to.”
She credits p:ear with helping her get employment and building her self-esteem through activities that enabled her to discover and utilize her skills.
Stewart’s academic adviser, Greg Townley, said some studies just provide research, but this one will help inform programming.
The study also found that psychological well-being was significantly greater among male participants than it was among those who identified as female, transgender or nonbinary.
“People who are transgender or not cisgender, they have probably had certain life experiences that contribute to lower psychological well-being simply because of discrimination and whatever else,” Stewart said. “For them, and for women, they are likely to have a more difficult time living on the streets in the sense that it’s harder to protect yourself if you’re not male, it’s easier to be taken advantage of, there are biological needs that might make living on the streets more stressful.”
Stewart said she hopes to conduct more research into that area in the future.
Email Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @greenwrites.
© 2019 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots.
Street Roots is funded by individual readers like you. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
