The Insane Challenge of Full-Time Work... While Homeless

...253 days to go...

I expected to crush my modest goal of 300 volunteer hours this year.

The reality? I’m on pace… but only just. 112 days in, I’ve volunteered 115 hours, which is just a smidge over an hour a day. And a few of those hours took place while I was still scoping A Handful of Coins, before I ‘officially’ started the one year timer. So you could argue I’m even a bit behind pace.

I realized recently that my struggle to rack up tons of volunteer hours actually mirrors the vastly greater challenge homeless people face in putting together a full-time work week. It also illustrates, I think, why the federal government’s decision to add 80 hour per month work requirements for food assistance (SNAP) and healthcare (Medicaid) is such a cruel and misguided idea, even if it might seem reasonable to some on the surface.

If I can’t volunteer 80 hours per month when my housing, food, and healthcare are secure, how can we expect someone who’s homeless to manage it?

There are three major barriers that keep me from volunteering more, that I wanted to share here. Homeless people face these same obstacles and many others - except for them the stakes are infinitely higher.

Commute Time: The Hidden Tax on Hourly Work

I live in Magnolia, a quiet neighborhood on Seattle’s west side that’s somewhat geographically isolated. With no through traffic, it’s a wonderful place to raise kids, but it’s far from just about everywhere else in the city. I routinely spend 30 minutes each way commuting to my volunteer shifts.

I don’t mind this time. I catch up on podcasts and audiobooks. But for someone commuting to an hourly job, that’s an hour each day they’re not getting paid.

For homeless people without cars, it’s much worse. Commute times of 90 minutes each way aren’t unusual when you’re dependent on public transit. That’s three daily hours not earning money.

I met a young man recently working a minimum wage job. He told me he was qualified for a construction job paying 50% more than minimum wage—an extra $10 per hour to start, with quick raises from there. But because he lacked a reliable car, he couldn’t take the job. Construction requires commuting to different job sites all around the city, sometimes on short notice. Without transportation, the opportunity was out of reach.

So he stayed at his minimum wage job instead.

Short Shifts: The Impossibility of a 40-Hour Week

Most volunteer shifts are 2-3 hours. This makes perfect sense for housed people trying to fit occasional shifts around jobs or family life. But it creates a major problem for homeless people trying to earn a living wage.

Many homeless people work “short shift” jobs. Some stand outside Home Depot hoping to be hired as day laborers for gigs that last only a few hours. Retailers and fast food restaurants expect workers to be available for four-hour shifts to cover peak periods. Concerts, sporting events, and festivals hire short-term employees for less than full-day shifts.

When working these types of jobs, it’s nearly impossible to string together anything approaching a 40-hour work week. The randomness of scheduling, combined with commute times, makes it extraordinarily difficult to hit even the 80-hour monthly threshold required for benefits.

And that’s before you start missing shifts for childcare…

Childcare: The Unpredictable Schedule Killer

As dedicated readers know, I have a 14-year-old daughter, Natalie, and a one-year-old, Rosie. Spending time with each of them, along with my wonderful wife Jen, represents the highlights of my life. But even though I love it, they require big chunks of time that sometimes conflict with my ability to volunteer.

Take a recent week. Natalie’s school observed Indigenous People’s Day on Monday and had a teacher in-service day on Friday. I take Rosie to preschool each Thursday morning, where she’s learning how to interact and play with friends. These aren’t optional commitments—they’re part of being a parent. That was half my week right there.

To be fair, having a one year-old dependent would exempt me from those work requirements. But what if I didn’t have Rosie? As a 14 year-old, Natalie would not qualify as a dependent for the purpose of these work requirements, so I’d still be on the hook. And I still would have lost two days of productivity that week when she was out of school.

For homeless people with children, these same requirements often mean missed shifts or shifts they can’t sign up for in the first place. And unlike me, they can’t afford the lost earnings.

The Cruelty of Work Requirements

I’m grateful that I don’t depend on my volunteer hours for my roof, utilities, and meals. But my schedule these last 112 days has shown me why, for someone with kids and without full-time employment, working even a modest number of hours can be extraordinarily difficult.

The 80-hour monthly work requirement might sound reasonable to someone who’s never had to navigate the barriers I’ve described. But when you’re homeless, every one of these obstacles is magnified. You’re dealing with unreliable transportation, unpredictable schedules, childcare challenges, and often health issues that make consistent work difficult.

And now, under the One Big, Beautiful Bill, if you can’t manage 80 hours per month despite all these barriers, you lose access to food assistance and healthcare. The very supports that might help you overcome these obstacles are taken away because you couldn’t overcome them.

I’ve certainly fallen well short of my volunteer goals, even with every advantage. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be with even less food and healthcare to sustain me.

The question isn’t whether homeless people deserve help. The question is whether we’re setting up requirements designed to help people succeed, or requirements designed to justify cutting them off.

After 112 days of trying to volunteer just one hour per day, I know which one this looks like to me.