HOW CAN WE USE AWARENESS TO CHANGE HOW PEOPLE PERCEIVE HOMELESSNESS?

PROJECT MOTIVATION

At the beginning of 2016, I was looking into starting a project that would benefit homeless people in the area of Tempe, Arizona. Although that project fell through, in my research about homelessness, I found out that not only is there a true need for support, but there are a lot of misconceptions about why homelessness even exists. Even though drug abuse and poverty are major causes of homelessness, in most cases, homeless people are simply victims of unfortunate circumstances such as mental illnesses, domestic violence, and post traumatic stress. As a part of the Hispanic Business Students Association, we created this month of homelessness and food insecurity awareness month as our way to help people in need through various activities and initiatives, but most importantly, as a way to increase awareness of what causes these issues and how we can help to prevent it from happening.

EMERGENCY FOOD BOX PACKING & DISTRIBUTION

For two straight Saturdays, the members of HBSA visited the St. Mary's Food Bank to pack emergency food boxes and distribute them to people in need. Not only was this activity a fun team building activity, the staff at the Food Bank were nice enough to show us around their facilities and teach us about their holistic approach to help people get out of the food insecurity cycle through development programs.

FOOD AND FUNDS DRIVE

For the entire month, HBSA hosted a Food & Funds Drive which was meant to help the members of the St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance programs. We set up various food and donation boxes throughout ASU and we ended up providing around 500 meals for the homeless!

CLOTHES DRIVE

We also asked our members and the ASU community to donate their old clothes to the Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS). One of the things we didn't realize is that because they only have one set of clothes, they are not able to wash them. This causes them to constantly wear dirty clothes which not only makes them feel bad, but prolongs the negative image to people who are not aware of their situation.

DINNING SHIFT

The HBSA members also volunteered to one of the Dinning Shifts for The Society of St. Vincent De Paul were we hosted around 700 people for lunch. We were responsible for setting the dining room, greet and interact with the people, and made sure that all of them had enough to eat.

PROJECT IMPACT

Every time we had an activity, a facility tour, or delivered the food, funds, or clothing, we felt very proud as an organization to have contributed to a greater cause. However, what will last longer than one month, and what was personally more gratifying, was witnessing the shift in the conversations and the perspective the participants had about homelessness and food insecurity. To some, it comes easy to judge a person holding a sign at an intersection as lazy and dirty, but if we take a closer look, we can see that there is often an underlying and sometimes systematic reason why they are living that way that is beyond their control. The lesson here is that it is important to defer judgment and switch the way we see current issues in order to have a shot at defining and eliminating what causes them.

“Don't look down on somebody unless you are helping them up.”

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