![]() ![]() A range of spaces in the building accommodates different sleep schedules, and the lighting is designed to work with most people’s circadian rhythms - the approximately 24-hour cycle in the physiological processes of all living beings. The new Valley Lodge offers a ventilation system and electric power for each resident, along with acoustically rated windows and air conditioning. Until a few months ago, the shelter resembled college dorms, and relied on windows for ventilation. New York architect Ira Mitchneck designed a new shelter for homeless residents ages 50 and older, dubbed Valley Lodge. Now, along with shelter staff and case managers, they are turning their attention to therapeutic, “trauma-informed” shelter care, meaning that there is an attempt to reduce the experiences of powerlessness for those caught in homelessness. Situations like mine have finally reached the attention of builders and architects. I grabbed my backpack and garbage bag with my possessions and set back onto the streets. Since I no longer slept deeply - homelessness had trained me to remain constantly vigilant - I instantly opened my eyes. ![]() I had already walked more than 3 miles from the homeless shelter, which didn’t have any remaining beds that night - only thin rubber mats on tiled floors in fluorescent-lit rooms filled with sad, angry and often loud women.Īfter a half hour on the bench, someone opened an apartment door and walked across one of the upstairs corridors. That night, in 2016, I curled up on that bench outside a Salt Lake City apartment complex. This loss becomes acute when it comes to regulating sleep, as the majority of shelters place people in barrack-type rooms where residents can’t control the noise, the temperature, the lighting, or even what time they must go to bed or wake up. The first issue that homeless people inevitably face is a loss of control, Watts points out. After all, without the clarity that a decent night’s sleep provides, how can someone climb the herculean mountain of self-sufficiency that housing oneself demands? What if homeless people were provided with more comfortable sleeping environments, where they could get the rest required to function better? Would homelessness then be reduced? I definitely think so. ![]() This simplicity, however, begs a few questions: Yet the simplest way for people to drastically improve the quality of their lives, Watts notes, is: “Get more sleep.” A man who wished to remain anonymous sits on the sidewalk across the street from Mother Brown's Dining Room for the homeless in the Bayview neighborhood in San Francisco, California, on Wednesday, Oct. Shelters aren’t providing the needed respite - 70 percent of homeless individuals who had experienced shelter stays reported that they sometimes felt so tired that they could not function normally during the day, according to a 2011 study conducted by the House the Homeless in Austin, Texas. Of those, 7,499 people are homeless in San Francisco, according to the 2017 San Francisco Homeless Point-in-Time Count. Department of Housing and Urban Development. There are more than 554,000 homeless people in this country, estimates the U.S. ![]()
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