Last Friday, as Halloween-weekend festivies began, two Georgetown students stood on the corner of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue collecting spare change for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF program. In less than five minutes, they collected donations from 10 people. Twenty feet away, a homeless man sat on the sidewalk with an empty cup asking for change. No one looked twice.

As the holiday commercials and shopping deals begin to resurface, Americans remember — or perhaps feel somewhat obligated — to give back to those less fortunate. There are food drives, clothing drops and publicly sponsored programs such as Toys for Tots. But poverty and homelessness are problems that never go away, but rather become increasingly severe around the country.

Just look at the statistics: According to a 2007 study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, approximately 3.5 million individuals — 1.35 million of them children — will experience homelessness in a given year. These numbers are likely lower than in reality, since the actual definition of homelessness excludes individuals who live without reliable or permanent housing, which make up much of the homeless population in America.

For Georgetown students, homelessness is more than just a list of numbers and figures; walking down Wisconsin Avenue and M Street, men and women can be seen sleeping, talking or begging for spare change on the sidewalks, and within the District, more than one in five residents live at or below the poverty line. In 2006, 9,369 individuals and families were homeless in Washington — a 19 percent increase from two years before. With the onset of the financial crisis, the numbers have only increased since then.
This reality of urban homelessness is put in stark relief in our own backyard of Washington, D.C., as the issue of poverty and homelessness is riddled with denials, misconceptions and prejudices.

It is because of this growing crisis that members of the D.C. and Georgetown University communities are coming together to change notions of homelessness while the face of homelessness itself changes around the country.

Tracy Monson, spokesperson for So Others Might Eat, a nonprofit organization that has been providing food, shelter, medical care and job training for the poor and homeless in D.C. since 1970, reflected on the intensification of the problem of late.

“For SOME, I can say that the number of meals that we serve in our dining room has increased by more than 16 percent, and our medical clinic has been serving a record number of patients when you compare 2009 to 2008. It has continued to grow for the past six months,” she said. “There are more people accessing our job training programs; and ... when they did the homeless enumeration count in January, they found that there were 25 percent more homeless families than there had been the previous year.”
As the homeless population around the country grows and changes, the nation is once again faced with a multitude of misconceptions and lack of knowledge surrounding the homeless.

Yet in the bubble that is Georgetown, it is easy to push the plight of the homeless to the back of one’s mind and not appreciate the problem’s magnitude, which has grown tremendously in the past year, especially due to the homeless funding cuts that the D.C. government has instated for the coming year. According to the Department of Human Services, only $12 million in services for the homeless has been cut, yet others involved in the public service believe the numbers to be more in the ballpark of $20 million — something many Georgetown students are not aware of.

“It seems like homelessness is the one issue that Georgetown doesn’t care about,” said Conor Finnegan (COL ’12), the coordinator of Just One Day at Georgetown and a columnist for The Hoya. Just One day is a 24-hour event held the last weekend in October that seeks to raise awareness about hunger and homelessness. “It’s got a lot to do with the culture we’ve grown up in and the stereotypes it perpetuates about the homeless: They’re drunks or drug addicts, they’re lazy, it’s their own fault, they’re dirty, they’re mentally ill, et cetera. With these ideas in mind, it seems like an unsolvable problem or one that doesn’t involve us. At the same time, it has a shameful connotation to it that doesn’t evoke the same emotional reaction from students as some other issues do.”

“I don’t think we have an adequate understanding among our students, and I would probably also say amongst our faculty and staff,” said Kathleen Maas Weigert, executive director of the Center for Social Justice, Research, Teaching and Service at Georgetown. “This is not a fault of people but an opportunity for knowledge and projects that could increase that. I think we need to do a better job around that — everything from encouraging more courses to integrate the topic of homelessness, to encouraging more students to get involved in action, service or justice kind of outreach that the center and others can provide.”

Several student groups, along with organizations around the city, are working to do just that. Last year, Georgetown’s Nomadic Theatre partnered with the Center for Social Justice to produce “Address: Unknown,” a play written by Kevin Bowles (COL ’09) that was based on interviews he conducted with homeless and previously homeless individuals around the city.

“As a company that is interested in producing socially aware theater, it was hard for us to pass up a project like ‘Address: Unknown.’ We thought it would be an amazing opportunity to put a face on homelessness by actually interacting with the D.C. homeless community and telling their stories in their words through the show,” said Lauren Cucarola (COL ’10), a member of Nomadic Theatre who was involved in last year’s production.
Those involved with the show said they hoped to open the eyes of the Georgetown community about the issue of homelessness and to remove the stigmas associated with those who are homeless because, as the crisis grows, the faces of the homeless have changed immensely.

“One of the biggest misconceptions would be that the homeless are somehow a uniform group of people,” Monson said. “That everyone is a single man, for example. We know from statistics that at this point actually a third of the people who are homeless in the District are members of families, and that is a growing proportion of people that are homeless.” But in D.C., about 50 percent of the homeless population is employed, and the makeup of the group itself is very heterogeneous.

Cucarola agrees. “The show helped change people’s understanding of what it means to be homeless. By telling the stories of homeless and formerly homeless individuals, we were able to show that anyone could become homeless, and that the people you might see on the street all have stories to tell,” she said.

For several of the performances, homeless individuals were invited to participate and read parts for the show.

“To invite someone whose life is in fact what this [‘Address: Unknown’] is about, that is pretty impressive and profound. The way it was done I think captured a lot of the complexities and nuances in this issue,” Weigert said.

And only two weeks ago, Georgetown students again rallied around bringing awareness to homelessness by participating in Just One Day. Apart from hearing firsthand experiences from invited speakers — homeless people, previously homeless people and people working to help the homeless — and taking a bus tour of D.C. neighborhoods with large homeless populations, the event also included a 24-hour fast, a campout on the Leavey Esplanade to simulate the everyday life of those living on the streets and a chance to deliver food to homeless individuals.

Although the event itself lasted only 24 hours, Finnegan said he hopes the event will have a long-term impact. “The event itself and the publicity for it make it visible on campus, we hope. For those who participate, it really is an eye-opening experience, one that they then share with friends and neighbors who didn’t attend.”

The issue of homelessness may seem daunting to most of us, but some working on campus and beyond the Hilltop hope to illuminate the complexities of these issues by shining a light on misconceptions of the homeless population. By doing so, these organizations hope to push the issue to the forefront of the city and to gain more support from both the university and students, in order to gain ground on the issue.

“As a Jesuit university that advocates for social justice and as an organization invested in this city, Georgetown can do much more. … Smart and creative approaches are needed, and the university can do so much more to foster them. That being said, it is not solely the responsibility of the university. We the students can and must do just as much to help,” Finnegan said.

Weigert went further. “I think the imperative for us is to educate about justice and provide opportunities for students to get involved in issues,” she said.

Weigert hopes people understand the effects of the current economic climate on homelessness. “More and more people are going to be in this situation, and that we as a society have to keep thinking of the structures that will preclude people from becoming homeless.”

As the days get colder and we again begin to appreciate our parkas and indoor heating, it is important to remember that this is also the time that the Winter Plan will go into effect in the District, a time when emergency shelters are set up to shield our homeless from the freezing temperatures. Residing in the nation’s capital and attending one of the most prestigious universities in the United States, Hoyas have become leaders in the fight to end poverty, whether by peeking their heads out of the Lau cubicles, removing themselves from Leo’s Down Under or taking a break from their normal Friday night festivities and have begun to examine what is really transforming the face of our nation.