Alternative Winter Break
homelessness: a reevaluation of common misconceptions
Margaret Price
Issue date: 2/1/06 Section: features
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Versus Magazine Online [Image Edition]
Most of us have served food in a soup kitchen, folded clothes for a clothes drive, maybe even put some money into the Salvation Army tins during the holidays. These are all kind gestures, but how often do we really confront the issue of homelessness by asking a person who was homeless how they were doing or spend the night in a homeless shelter? Over winter break six Vanderbilt students and I embraced the opportunity to do all of these things as part of a spin-off organization of Alternative Spring Break named Alternative Winter Break.
For six days we worked with the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, an organization in downtown Atlanta, GA that provides meals, transitional housing, and advocates for the rights and dignity of the homeless population in Atlanta. The group was fortunate to engage in a variety of activities, from serving food to 500 men and women each night, going to court and listening to trials about panhandling, to touring the city of Atlanta and seeing the torn down low-income housing units being replaced with expensive luxury apartments. All of these experiences gave us a better understanding about the depth and underlying issues of homelessness.
The most meaningful experience came on the last night of our trip when we spent the night in the shelter. The men on the trip stayed in the "garage" consisting of 300 plastic chairs occupied by men who were unable to secure a bed in a shelter. The women stayed upstairs in a small hallway which held 30 plastic chairs occupied by homeless women and their children. Throughout the night I had to hold back tears as I watched the two-year-old boy and his seven-year-old sister attempt to sleep on the chairs in front of me. Behind me were two high school girls who were doing their homework and sleeping in their school clothes.