Surviving the Help

As I read through our ‘virtual space’, I notice that a lot of people write about Far Eastern slums,poverty and ways of trying to understand and address this ‘social problem’.
I really like Ange’s optimistic suggestion in trying to understand the problematic issue -- from the entry on the 13th March when she wrote, “if you truly care and want to help them, you must do it right! Go live with them (for example) and feel with them to fully realize what they need. You could be surprised that they might not even need any help actually.”

However I cannot agree with Samuel Clarke’s entry posted on the 4th April when he comments on Olivier’s entry:
“It was suggested, as Olivier Ward writes, that people began to argue positively for favelas in the class seminar, arguing that there was ‘enjoyment’ in living in such a place or that it would be ‘ok’ because ‘mother earth’ will sort out the situation. I do not believe that either of these suggestions made, were thought about in an ethical manner but it does go to show the extent to which people begin to try and detach themselves from the situation and also end up at ridiculous solutions to the problem”.

I would like to focus not on the Far Eastern slums but on “Cardboard City” - a famous slum of one of the richest European cities – London. I would also like to focus on the supposedly ‘ethical’ way the British government dealt
with ‘the issue’, and question what is a designers position in solving this type of ‘inconvenient’ problem.

Cardboard City was an area of cardboard boxes, lived in by homeless people in London near Waterloo station
from 1983 until 1998.
In the mid-1980’s the site, in the pedestrian underpasses under the Bullring roundabout, was home to up to 200.
It was famously regarded as a symbol of society's failure to deal with homelessness.
By 1998 the local Council won an eviction order, enabling to clear the remaining people from the area, to make way for a £20m IMAX cinema.
In many articles we can read about how wonderful the government was, offering the last 30 homeless flats
and small sums of money to ‘get straight’, however no one seems to mention that the big number of the rest 170 people were threatened and intimidated (with a use of physical violence), and left what for years use to be their ‘home’ simply out of fear.
But even the previously mentioned ‘lucky 30’ didn’t find the opportunity of being re-housed appealing…

“(…) those who live in Cardboard City feel there is a real sense of community. People know each other, they have been living together for a long time and it's probably the first time that many of them have had what they feel is a family"

"They have no concept of a normal life and just spend the £500 that you give them to get straight on drink or drugs. It might work if the people you are trying to rehabilitate are given some counselling because most of them have no idea what it is like to settle down and live in a flat."

While the life of those sleeping rough is unacceptable to most of us, those who lived in Cardboard City felt there was a real sense of community.
That’s why I do not agree with Samuel stating that people’s comments, suggesting that maybe there is ‘enjoyment’
in living in such a place, were unethical or that they tried to detach themselves from the situation.
…if anything they were trying to understand and it seems that they got it right.
As one man who lived in Cardboard City for 15 years put it:
“I know it stinks, I know it's shitty, it may seem like hell to you but we've chosen it”.

The question I want to raise is – how can designers help in difficult social situations like this one?

I don’t have a perfect or fulfilling answer but what I am sure of is that as designers we have to be able to use our empathy to the extreme. And if our imagination can’t take us far enough, we then need to put ourselves into the actual situation.

I partly agree with Samuel that “This topic is larger than a righteous designer saying how ‘devastating’ the situation is and how they as a designer are going to make a difference”.

I wrote ’partly’ because it is clear that without the political will there can be no fundamental change, however if our ethics don’t let us sleep at night, what is there to stop us from trying to make a difference as individuals…?
Yes, it would be like giving first aid, but if we can really understand their needs, just that little help might mean a lot more than a flat and £500.




http://shockgenerator.blogspot.com/2007/03/arts-of-survival.html samuel
http://shockgenerator.blogspot.com/2007/03/arts-of-survival_13.html ange
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19980225/ai_n14148779
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_City_(London)