Over spring break, Catholic Campus
Ministries (CCM) and Episcopal Campus
Ministries (ECM) teamed up to participate
in the National Coalition for the
Homeless (NCH) Homeless Challenge.
The challenge is a 48 hour plunge in
which participants make themselves appear
homeless in order to blend in with
the homeless people in the streets of
Washington, D.C. The point of the challenge
is to give average people a new
perspective on the way homeless people
in America are treated and the struggles
they face on a daily basis.
Four Longwood students were among
the eight people who headed to Washington,
D.C. on Saturday, March 11. The
first two days of the trip were spent touring
the cathedrals and museums of D.C.,
and the nights were spent sleeping on
the floor of a classroom in St. Patrick's
Episcopal Church in Georgetown.
At 9 a.m. on Monday, the group split up
and the four participants of the homeless
challenge departed from the NCH
headquarters. They headed out onto
the streets of Northwest D.C. dressed in
torn, dirty clothing. They carried all the
blankets they would need for the next 48
hours in various backpacks and garbage
bags. Money and phones were not allowed.
Over the next two days, the participants
were on their own to find food for
themselves. They managed to stay fed
by begging for money and food and by
searching for soup kitchens and giveaways.
Panhandling is not allowed on
federal property, and many businesses
do not allow it outside of their buildings.
A few participants found themselves
being rushed away from public
places where they would normally be
welcomed.
At 9 p.m. on both days of the challenge,
participants met up with men who work
for NCH as guides. These men have experienced
homelessness in Washington,
D.C. They help participants find cardboard
to sleep on and a place to sleep.
After digging in dumpsters for cardboard
and settling in on sidewalks or
benches for the night, they were able to
hear these men's stories, ask them questions
and get to know them.
Luckily for the participants, the weather
in D.C. that week was considerably
warm, and they slept safely. That is not
to say they got much sleep. They had
only a sheet of cardboard between them
and the hard unforgiving sidewalks or
benches. They were visited in the night
by both curious rats and curious humans,
and they were awakened early in
the morning by security guards shooing
them from in front of buildings.
While the four challenge participants
were on the streets, the rest of the group
spent their time volunteering at soup
kitchens. On Monday they worked with
Food and Friends, a mobile operation
that distributes food to needy people in
the metro D.C. area. On Tuesday they
split their time between D.C. Metro Food
and then back to Food and Friends.
At the end of the two days, the exhausted
challenge participants met
back up at the NCH headquarters to
share their stories and attend the Faces
of Homelessness Speakers' Bureau. The
speakers consisted of a currently homeless
woman living in a shelter, a previously
homeless man and a previously
homeless woman who was afforded a
case worker and funding to move into
her own apartment. The speakers shared
their stories and then opened the floor to
questions.
Homelessness is a serious and growing
problem in America. According to
the NCH website, "approximately 3.5
million people, 1.35 million of them children,
are likely to experience homelessness
in a given year." The purpose of the
Homeless Challenge is not to solve the
problem, but to open people's eyes to a
problem that is not being cured. Hopefully
members of the Longwood community
will continue to participate in
the challenge in years to come.
