Spring Break
Voices Of Homelessness Speak
Vanessa Joy
Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: Focus
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"The main goal of the panel is to educate students about homelessness, to kind of put faces to the problem, so they can really understand the different aspects of the issue, why people live on the streets, and kind of break through the stereotypes that people have about homelessness," said Amanda Ploch, a 5th-semester political science and human rights double-major, and the organizer of the event.
David
The first panelist of the evening, 33 year-old David was dressed in jeans and a basketball jersey over a t-shirt. He looked like anyone else, but his life was far from normal; he has schizophrenia. David painted the harsh reality that many people with schizophrenia are unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. Often they do not realize that anything is wrong with them. Unfortunately, David's mental illness cost him his job and gave him his first real taste of life on the streets. His first few experiences were not pleasant. Phoenix, Ariz. had soup kitchens that put him in "cages" and he was literally fed behind bars. When David wasn't inside a shelter or soup kitchen, he was outside in temperatures that were consistently soaring above 100 degrees. His experience with homelessness continue to intensify as he moved from one state to the next, finally ending up in New York City. David was beaten with a bat, had rocks thrown at him, was spray-painted and urinated on. It wasn't until he was arrested and was given an opportunity to get help for his mental illness that things started to turn around. From his experiences and the struggles he endured, he was able to start his own non-profit organization entitled "Until We're Home," and recently was elected to the Board of Directors for the National Coalition for the Homeless.
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