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In summary:
From a bicycle in San Diego to running in San Francisco, these programs organize training groups specifically for homeless Californians.
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Robert Brown had tried all about his pain – from acupuncture to massages and chiropractics.
Brown, a 59 -year -old army veteran who spent decades living on the street, has a crushed album in the column and damage to the hips of the hips. What finally helped him feel better was not medication or traditional physiotherapy.
It was 20 -mile weekly bicycle ride with others vagabonds And former San Diego residents who lived homeless.
“I tell all my doctors in Jola hospital that I feel better than in the last decade,” he said, “and everyone says it’s about the bicycle.”
Brown goes out to ride almost every Thursday morning with a cycling program initiated by the provider of services to the villages of homeless people Joe. This is part of a handful of programs led by different different organizations, all designed to ensure that homeless Californians who are statistically more likely to have health problems, to exercise with a community. He Skid Row Running Club In Los Angeles, he organizes regular competitions early in the morning for people at risk of being homeless and having addiction. Back at my feet Organize competitions for homeless people across the country, even in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And Ee. It offers football programs for homeless people, when restoring or life in or below the poverty line in cities such as Los Angeles, Oklland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco.
Deacon John Roberts runs bicycle tours in San Diego and said that while eating a bicycle does not take people to a home himself, this is the best way he has found to help people feel better physically and mentally while traveling the hard way to get out of the lack of housing.
“Bicycle walking gives people physical, mental and spiritual well -being,” he said. “And that’s social.”
Street life is difficult for the body and homes that people have less likely to obtain adequate medical aidS Almost half of The Californians surveyed for homeless For homes and homeless people, Beniof of UCSF in 2023 They described their health as regular or badAnd 60% report that there is at least a chronic health. Among the most common chronic health problems were hypertension, asthma, heart conditions and diabetes.
Exercise programs aimed at homeless people are scarce and research on their results are limited. A UK study Which analyzes the benefits of exercise among homeless people has concluded that most participants improve their mental health and blood pressure.
Robin Petering runs yoga hours for young people in the Los Angeles area for about four years before their hours stopped at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Petering, who serves as the Executive Director of the Youth Organization for Homeless Youth at the front, set out to make yoga inclusive for everyone. He wanted to put an end to the stereotype that it was for the “white woman rich in her lullemonmon”, and she was not worried if her classes were taught in noisy buildings or if her customers were wearing tight jeans. They focused on soft stretching and breathing techniques. If customers could not or did not want to throw themselves on the ground, they crossed the class, sitting in a chair.
Pering said homeless young people often suffer injuries and violence, which can lead to poor control over their impulses and quickly get involved in battles. This can hurt their ability to get out of the street situation: battles can make them expel from a shelter.
In this sense, Petering states that yoga is useful. She and her team studied 58 homeless young people who began to practice yoga and found that after two months their level of full attention was increased (judging by their answers to questions like “criticizing me for being arranged or inappropriate”) and that the amount of battles in which they were included.
Only yoga does not end the situation of the homeless, Petering said, but if it can help them learn to control better, you can facilitate access to homes.
Most of the people involved in the San Diego Cycling Program find out because they are already receiving other services from Father Joe, whether they live on the street or in the shelters and housing centers of the non -profit organization. There is a typical tour of between six and ten cyclists, Roberts said, and always includes a stop stop, often at a burger in-n-out. Father Joe gives each participant a bicycle to each participant and after each participant travels 160 kilometers (which usually takes about five weeks), Father Joe gives this cyclist a donated bicycle, helmet and lock to pick them up. After another 160 kilometers, each cyclist receives a bus pass. So far, the program has given more than 70 bicycles.
“The idea is to have the freedom to travel whenever you want, to go where you want,” Roberts said. Most of their passengers do not have a car.
The routes began almost a decade ago, but they stopped at the beginning of the pandemic. Roberts took control and resumed tours in the fall of 2020, and also added the program to win a bicycle.
Brown began to ride with the group in 2022.
“I hadn’t created a bicycle for 20 years,” he said. “It was absolutely awful and it wasn’t my thing. I’m a weightlifter, a kind of slow movement. “
He has already traveled almost 3,200 kilometers, maintains his subsidized home in the father’s building, where he pays 30% of his income for rent, does not drink and goes to therapy.
“Now I feel much better than then,” he said.
This article was originally published by CalmattersS
