It’s 7 am on the first Saturday of Spring Break and I am squished in the back seat of a rental minivan on a road trip to Washington D.C. If you are involved with Alternative Spring Break, going to D.C. only means one thing-the homeless challenge. The National Coalition for the Homeless has a program that has people dress down and spend 48 hours on the streets. That’s right, I drove for 12 hours to be homeless during Spring break.
Although we did other volunteer work while we were in D.C., such as working at soup kitchens and being vendors for Street Sense( a newspaper that features stories on homelessness and other social issues), the Homeless Challenge was the biggest part of our trip.
Tuesday morning was the start of our homeless challenge. Once we got to the National Coalition for the Homeless, we were briefed and let loose onto the streets of Washington D.C. with no food, no water, no money, no cell phone, and no idea what the next 48 hours would be like. We roamed the streets of D.C. asking for jobs, offering to mop restaurant floors for food, and panhandling for money.
We met up with our guide, Anthony, at McPherson square at 5:30. That’s when Martha’s Table comes and gives out food. After we ate some sandwiches and soup we needed to “get our beds.” We waited until about 7 pm to go dumpster diving for cardboard. We laid down the cardboard in front of a restaurant by a subway station. We had to wait until the restaurant closed before we could make our beds, and we also had to be gone by 5 am.
On our last day, a homeless man came up to three of us and asked, “What are you learning from this?” So what did I learn from this? I learned about the closeness of the homeless community. When they have no family or friends to support them, they have to be a support system for each other. These are real people with feelings and that just want to have respect. Even something as simple as saying “Hello” can really make a difference. No one plans on being homeless. It just takes one poor decision to lead someone to living on the streets.
This experience also surfaced many questions. Why are there more shelters for animals than there are shelters for people? Why are hate crimes against homeless people not illegal? Why are there so many empty buildings in the nation’s capital, yet hundreds of people sleeping on the streets? Why is eradicating homelessness not a top priority in society?
I was only homeless for 48 hours, but there are people who have been homeless for years. I know it isn’t an issue that I can fix alone. But I can educate myself on homelessness and spread awareness of the issue. Homelessness can only be fought if we are all united against it.