Well isn't better to understand what it means to be homeless than to actually help the homeless?

peace

TOBY SAYS: Are you being sarcastic?

i'm not totally sure i agree. after all, the golden girls learned a hell of a lot that time they spent the night in the homeless shelter!

That is dumb but I've heard worse. I had a summer intern tell me that one of her professors talked about becoming a heroin junkie, to try and learn what that's like - and this intern thought it was a great idea. I wanted to smack some sense into her, but being somewhat new on the job at the time, I merely argued with her instead.

I heard about something like this when I was in high school. Even then, the uber naive liberal that I was, had the same sentiments you expressed. Being homeless sucks, and i dont have to pretend to be homeless to realize it.

Interesting program. I've never heard of it but I do have to agree with your views on it. It's a waste of resources when people could be helping instead of "trying to learn".

I thoguht about it again, and maybe the point is more self serving. maybe its for a better understanding of how they would deal with homelessness.

TOBY SAYS: That isn't even the point. Do you live in D.C.? Have you ever seen what the streets are like at night? I don't care what you might learn from the experience; it's too dangerous and stupid to be worth it.

Wow, I've heard of some dumb -ish before but that took the taco. Hell just being on the street in DC at night is dangerous let alone living on the street for two days. But I agree don't have to experience it to know its sucks to be homeless

Since it's a program set up by educators who work with homeless shelters, it's not likely to target shelters that have limited spaces. Your worry about a student taking up the place of someone who actually needs a bed is unfounded.

Someone who plans to work with homeless people may want to do a program like that to give them better insight into what being homeless means. While it sounds extreme to the average person, it makes sense from a scientific point of view. There was an article in the Atlantic years ago about new ways for cities to tackle their homeless problem. One of the breakthroughs came from a grad student who spent some time being homeless.

These programs are not that uncommon.

TOBY SAYS: The bottom line is that college kids are being sent out onto the streets of a strange, unknown city for two nights without any supervision whatsoever. If you think this is a good idea, you're nuts and also obviously don't have children.

Toby- I have to agree with you. This seems like one of the stupidest ideas out there. I can see the headlines now "Ohio youth pretending to be homeless, killed at the corner of 9th and Florida"

The anonymous commenter above pointed to a "breakthrough" from a grad student that pretended to be homeless. Wouldn't be a better idea to ask the homeless themselves what caused them to be that way? Did you lose your job and you need vocational training to find a new one? Are you addidcted to drugs and need rehab? Are you too crazy to hold a job but the state sponsered mental institution was closed years ago? There have to be better ways than pretending to be homeless to gather that kind of information.

Just my 2 cents...

hey Apt604, you joking? Cannot believe that they would even consider this?! Oh, people continued to amaze me from time to time.

Toby, you are so right. Can't comment much farther on this subject because I agreed completely with you, m'dear.

Cheers,

R-

I work near the Farragut North Metro and I was surprised to see a white, young homeless person. However, it was not that surprising to me to see the number of people offering assistance to the white kid, the same people who ignore the usual group of 4-5 black men, most of them mentally or physically disabled, every day, even when one of them was sitting on the concrete sobbing because he'd pissed himself and had no way of cleaning it up. I'm truly appalled to hear the kid was just experimenting.

TOBY SAYS: I'm equally appalled.

These programs have been in place for years. If they hadn't figured out how to make them safe for these students, we would have heard about it a long time ago.

Clutching your pearls in shock at the thought of college students who choose to do this in supervised programs seems silly to me.

But clearly you've got a lot of fellow pearl-clutchers agreeing with you on this matter, so I must be wrong.

TOBY SAYS: Yes, you are wrong, because it's not a supervised program, it's entirely unsupervised, at least for the three days and two nights that they are out on the street.

You're right, Toby, but I have to say: from the perspective of Western civilization, this is an old story. Leaving aside the aspect of this program's lack of supervision and oversight--and the ignorance of thinking youre "learning" anything like this--what you're seeing is the same phenomenon as that which allows a freshly scrubbed white "Christian" male to walk around with a camera crew in an African village begging for money...rather than kneeling down and feeding as many kids food as is possible.

Yes, I know--there are too many kids there for one person to "make a difference." But--it's also the case that white Americans had rather dabble in humanitarianism than to actually get their hands dirty for real. In much the same way that the televangelist in Africa will waste a lot of the charity money before it gets to anyone where it can do any good, these college kids will "learn" how "just awful it must be to be homeless..." and not get much else from their experience except a sense of thankfulness. Thus be it ever: the Have's are glad that they're not in trouble and feel vaguely guilty, wanting to learn about the issue. And the Have-Not's can barely survive long enough to become the object of pity.

It seems like a 2-day white guilt reduction program to me, or a weekend warrior program for those not interested in a 2 year stint with Peace Corps or Americorps. Yes, pretty senseless, and the time, funds and energy could go elsewhere with better results.

Although the U Street Corridor has seen a crop of belligerent hyper white homelessfolk, whom I suspect are meth addict refugees from out West (it's a huge problem out there).

It is better to look homeless than to be homeless. Dirty is the new clean.

I'm familiar with the program you're talking about (mostly because I'm pretty sure it's my alma mater and my friend "T." you're referring to here), and I've got to agree with you. What amazes me isn't just the fact that they all think they're going to learn about homelessness through this "urban plunge," but that they manage to convince people to sign up for it every single year! I'm pretty sure it fucking sucks to be homeless, and I don't even have to spend a night being homeless to know that. And since being homeless sucks, I'm not eager at all to experience it.

And why someone around here hasn't said to him/herself, "Gee, it seems like a waste of resources for our kids to be doing this when they could be, y'know, serving food at a shelter or something instead." is beyond me.

How is spending two days without shelter in a city any different from survival training in the wilderness? The military still does that, and for a lot longer than two days. The object of study is different, but people choose to learn about things using very strange methods all the time.

Trying hard to spot the reason for outrage here, and still missing it. Also, I'm unconvinced by this argument that participants should just volunteer their time instead of using it to imerse themselves. I strongly suspect that many of them have already done so. Hopefully they didn't just wake up in their dorm one morning and decide to go live on the street for the weekend.

Anyway, I'm always suspect of these sensational imersion experience programs, they just seem to exoticize the subject, and end up empowering a few twits who had a weekend to spare with a false sense of enlightenment. On that point, we agree. However well meaning, these kids probably aren't any better educated after the program than before.

Oh, that reminds me of the time that a student group at UMD played homeless for the night by sleeping on McKeldin Mall to "raise awareness." Apparently PapaJohn's thought this was great and sent them free pizzas.

I guess they couldn't be bothered to try and feed actual homeless people.

First, San Francisco or Fransicko, as my friend calls it, is worst than DC with the homeless. At less when I walk down the streets of DC I don't notice human feces all over the place. Not, to mention used condoms all everywhere. At least I know they are not procreating. One night, I heard three gun shots or maybe four can't remember. I walked to the window and sure enough some drug dealer spread eagle in the middle of the street with all the homeless just looking on. I tell you if those students want to experience that shit, good luck. I have a better idea just take a nail gun to your head.

As for the homeless of DC, especially white homeless some of them do it as a job. I remember reading a story about a couple from Vienna, VA that would take the metro in a beg for money and then return to their beautiful home. Then there was the story in City Paper about the white guy who was on K St. always right near the Starbucks across from the park. I almost shit a brick when I found out how much money that guy took in. Lets, just say he did not need a loan from Ditech. Plus, it revealed the truth about him, not being a teenager and why he was kicked out of his home. I don't know but if you allegedly pull a gun on your mother and threaten to kill her it might call for a time out in the corner or even better thrown out of your home.

If you want to know about the homeless work in the shelters and talk to them. I don’t think you have to experience everything in life to actually know or understand it.

Hey,
I know that there are much more substantial arguments to be made concerning this but...who the hell would WANT to do something like this? I mean, color me superficial but I've got places to go, people to f*ck around with and bottles upon bottles of Jack Daniels to work my way through. I don't need to be "pretending" to be homeless for a weekend to know that it's a f*cked up life to live. sh*t, I got eyes.

Why can't these people just do what I did and spend a Thanksgiving in a soup kitchen or volunteer at a shelter? Or even thro some money to charity next time Sally Struthers attempts fit her big self on the TV screen again?

Ha ha, Apartment604 said they wanted to "smack" some sense into the intern that thought it was a great idea to try and become a HEROIN junkie to better understand what it's like. Ha ha nice irony. :-)

A great way to get shanked for your shoes. Idiots.

I haven't heard of the program specifically, but it doesn't surprise me--given the programs I've seen in school that are more exercizes in public jerking off than actual positive social action/service.

*By the way, love the picture. Mariah is hot, even in that context.

i love mariah.