I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for Volunteer Emory’s Homeless Immersion Alternative Spring Break trip. I knew I wanted to gain a better and more accurate understanding of homelessness, and I hoped to get beyond the stigmatization surrounding the issue. I also wanted to do what I could to help others and serve my community. I set out with nine other Emory students on this journey with only my backpack, a blanket, the clothes on my back and five dollars for food for the entire week.
The trip was five days and four nights, two of which we spent outside and two of which we spent at the Central Presbyterian Church Outreach shelter. We walked 10 to 12 miles per day, traveling to several organizations where we not only volunteered but also immersed ourselves into the homeless community. We opened our eyes to see people experiencing homelessness, not for how they looked, but for who they were as human beings.
I am ashamed to say that, before this experience, I was scared of people who were homeless. I had been trained by society to fear these people, avert my eyes as I passed them on the streets and ignore them, as if they were invisible. This perception towards people experiencing homelessness is ignorant, inaccurate and immoral.
The first thing I learned during my homeless immersion experience was that they are not homeless people, they are people experiencing homelessness. The fact that they do not have a place to call home does not define who they are, it is simply a single piece of a much larger puzzle. People experiencing homelessness are not lazy or less capable than anyone else. They are not all suffering from drug addiction or mental illness, although both issues are prevalent. Homelessness is generally caused by an unexpected crisis (e.g. the loss of a job, an unexpected injury that leads to unaffordable medical bills) that could happen to anyone.
We need to change the narrative that surrounds homelessness. No one is above homelessness, but the circumstances and privileges into which we are born determine the capacity with which we can deal with unexpected crises’ and avoid homelessness.
Especially in Atlanta, the issue of homelessness deserves our attention and resources. Approximately 21 percent of the people experiencing homelessness in Atlanta are veterans: men and women who put their lives on the line to defend the freedoms we hold so dearly in this country.
As students at Emory, a prestigious private university that requires not only intelligence, but also economic resources, we should re-evaluate our own priorities and future ambitions and take into account these people who have not had the same opportunities in life that we have had simply because of circumstances that were out of their control.
We are extremely privileged. Most people don’t have access to the quality of education that we do. It is our responsibility to take these opportunities and utilize them toward making the world a better place for everyone. I believe that we need to think about our actions, current and future, so we can benefit not ourselves but also society in general and align our future ambitions with societal improvement.
Helping others doesn’t require selflessness or giving up any personal interests; it just involves being aware and taking into account how our actions affect not only ourselves, but also others in our community. Focus on managing homelessness should be diverted to ending it through prevention methods and strategies. We should not tacitly accept the injustice that exists merely miles from our campus, but instead work together to create a community of equal opportunity.
All people, no matter the circumstances into which they were born, deserve a fair chance to create a life of their own.
– Rebecca Du
Illustration courtesy of Katrina Worsham.
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