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A note: Over the past couple of months, we’ve been featuring pieces from my colleague Marie Tae McDermott, who works with The Times’s Reader Center. Those are part of Your Lead, our series answering readers’ questions. Right now, we’re focusing on the ways inequality plays out in California.

For today, she spoke with an expert about compassion fatigue:

Ayanna, a reader in Chicago, asked: “What detaches a person so far from human suffering/poverty/homelessness that they see people who are stricken with one or all three as a public nuisance?”

Ayanna, who is a graduate student studying urban planning, added: “We can’t depend on the altruism of the wealthy to help solve the housing crisis. Housing policies must be equitable, inclusive and be pushed forth with the belief that shelter is a human right.”

To find out more about the ways in which we internalize human suffering and how to recognize compassion fatigue in ourselves, I talked with Benjamin Henwood, a licensed clinical social worker, an associate professor and director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the University of Southern California.

The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

What is compassion fatigue, and how can we combat it?

Compassion fatigue is when a person who wants to and has been trying to help address a problem, which in this case could be homelessness, begins to personalize and experience the distress of those they are trying to help. It is a form of what we would call a “secondary trauma,” and can result in people being less “present” and able to help others.

People in homeless services may be especially susceptible when the problem is prolonged and best efforts to help don’t yield satisfactory results.

While there’s not a lot of research on how best to address it, there are plenty of best practices that in different ways emphasize being kind to yourself. Of course, there may also be collective compassion fatigue, which can occur when the public is invested in trying to help address homelessness but don’t see the problem getting better.

Why do you think people can so easily turn away from the sight of human suffering?

I think it is self-protective. All of us are trying to “make it” in this world and the amount of human suffering out there can be overwhelming. I think we rationalize that since we can’t solve a problem on our own then it isn’t worth addressing the problem and we instead focus on the things we can and need to attend to in our own lives. This is faulty logic. We can help ease human suffering each and every day by taking the time to care about and relate to others.

We are often quick to reach into our pockets when disaster hits, like after an earthquake or wildfire, but do you think people are more reluctant to pitch in when it comes to helping the homeless?

With a natural disaster we attribute problems people face to the disaster itself, regardless of the state of affairs people faced before the natural disaster. In short, we do not place blame on people who are displaced by a natural disaster.

Homelessness is instead attributed to poor decision making or the fault of the person experiencing homelessness who we conclude are somehow to blame and not deserving of help or relief.

History shows us that vulnerable populations are often stigmatized. Do you think this applies to the homeless population?

Absolutely. Homelessness is highly stigmatized, which is why people resist having shelter or supportive housing in their neighborhood.

Ideas that most people experiencing homelessness are dangerous, criminals or mentally ill come from and are signs of stigma that aren’t supported by facts.

What can we do to combat the stigma?

We haven’t studied and don’t know a lot about fighting stigma related to homelessness. In other fields we’ve looked at stigma related to, for example, serious mental illness and found that there are several approaches including disseminating information (e.g. people with serious mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crimes) and exposing the public to people who have disclosed having a mental illness.

These can be targeted anti-stigma campaigns or part of a much larger media campaign. More recently, there have been media campaigns that appear to be addressing stigma related to homelessness, but it isn’t clear whether the message “anyone can become homeless” impacts stigma since while this may be true, we also know that certain groups, including African-Americans, are more likely to become homeless in the United States.

[Read more here about how to help your homeless neighbors.]

Here’s what you may have missed over the weekend

We often link to sites that limit access for nonsubscribers. We appreciate your reading Times coverage, but we also encourage you to support local news if you can.

On Friday, after months of tense negotiations, Pacific Gas & Electric and lawyers for victims of deadly wildfires agreed to a $13.5 billion deal. Not all of that money will go to victims, though. The settlement is expected to increase the likelihood that the embattled utility will emerge from bankruptcy before a crucial deadline. [The New York Times]

Read more about PG&E’s struggles to find a way out of bankruptcy. [The New York Times]

And here’s more about how officials want to change PG&E’s structure. [The New York Times]

Also, PG&E released a photo of a broken hook on its Butte County tower involved in starting the Camp fire, the deadliest blaze in California history. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

Firefighter overtime pay has surged in California. [The Los Angeles Times]

Not long after pleading guilty to misusing campaign funds, Representative Duncan Hunter said he’d resign his seat shortly after the holidays, ending the rise and fall of a conservative scion. [The New York Times]

Katie Hill, the former Los Angeles-area congresswoman who resigned earlier this year, wrote about her election, and her life since she stepped down: “I needed to make sure that my horrific experience did not frighten and discourage other women who will dare to take risks.” [New York Times Opinion]

Companies like Facebook and Twitter are poorly policing automated bots and other measures aimed at manipulating social media through fake likes, comments and clicks, according to a new report. [The New York Times]

“We see this as, in some ways, the Holy Family standing in for the nameless families.” A Nativity scene in Claremont depicts Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees, separated and in cages. [The Los Angeles Times]

How a tiny Illinois brewery bought Ballast Point, a big name among makers of West Coast-style India Pale Ales valued at $1 billion. It’s a dramatic chapter in the American craft beer boom. [The San Diego Union-Tribune]

Elisha Barno of Kenya, and Jane Kibbi, who is also Kenyan but lives in Auburn, were the top male and female runners at the California International Marathon in Sacramento. [The Sacramento Bee]

California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected]. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here.

Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, graduated from U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.

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