Tent City Reportback

On behalf of the College at Brockport’s Student Social Work Organization, fellow student Sue Dickinson and I organized Tent City this semester. Tent City is a campus event dedicated to bringing awareness to homelessness and how everyone is affected by this devastating epidemic. Sue, I and other volunteers spent the night on the main campus in tents and sleeping bags. A rally was held on April 14 at 6:00 p.m. at the flagpole—which was open to the public. At 6:00 p.m., speakers Ricardo Adams and Hubert Wilkerson—formerly homeless individuals—will be sharing their stories with the audience. Take Back The Land Rochester organizer Ryan Acuff also spoke at the rally to spread news about the organization and its mission.

I remember the excitement I felt when I first began preparing for Tent City. The words in my head were I’m doing this for the greater good and I’m doing something to make a difference. The words that came from my lips were “This is going to fucking awesome!” As hours unfolded, however, my enthusiasm began to wane. Throughout the entire Tent City event, it was below 40 degrees and I and Sue had to sleep in the freezing cold. I remember not being able to sleep soundly throughout the night—waking up in the middle of the night twice due to the excruciating discomfort. I could never be warm enough and I thought to myself I could anyone survive like this and not want to give up? When asking for donations, many of the student body laughed at me and the other volunteers and even though we were able to raise about $454 overall, we did it feeling humbled, exhausted and blessed that all had a home to return to.

Homelessness is a socioeconomic issue that affects all walks of life, recent college graduates included. In addition, we hoped to start the process of eliminating the stereotypes plaguing the homeless. There are entire groups of people who are not represented due to the typical image of the African American individual or strange men in trench coats (the female population, the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered population, recent college graduates, etc). Or the assumption that the person’s homelessness is caused by circumstances within their control. We as a society have got to question the reasons behind homelessness in order to eliminate it and we are pleased to notice that the rally made a dent in the audience’s consciousness.