Habitat for the Homeless week: Is misrepresentation necessary to get college students on board with effective programs?
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Academia | Compassionate Conservatism | Liberals — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Last week at the University of Georgia, the student-run affiliate of Habitat for Humanity celebrated its “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.” This national event, sponsored by the National Coalition for the Homeless (not by Habitat for Humanity International) and held in cooperation with groups like the “Students for Environmental Awareness” and “UGA Progressives,” was made up of activities including, but not limited to, a screening of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s latest film; a student-faculty forum entitled “Too Many Children Left Behind - Addressing the Education Gap”; and a “Provide Housing for People with AIDs” letter-writing campaign.
The week ended with a “Broken Bread Poverty Meal” which, according to UGA Habitat for Humanity’s website, is “a creative activism event sponsored by Acting on AIDS. Participants are invited to identify, interact with and intercede for those broken by the cycle of AIDS, poverty, and hunger. Using a simple porridge meal, true-to-life stories, discussion, prayer and advocacy, students are invited to engage their faith and respond with their hearts and through their citizenship.”
Read on . . .
For the last several years, UGA Habitat for Humanity’s “awareness week,” the climax of their activities for the year (and generally the only non-meeting activities they sponsor) has also included a two-day “homeless awareness” project. In this activity, representatives of UGA Habitat attempt to raise awareness among their fellow students for the plight of the homeless by building cardboard huts out of their used pizza, DVD player, and HDTV boxes, placing those “homes” at the student center in the middle of campus, and then sitting around in them for a few hours at a time – while listening to music and eating pizza and other fast food – before retiring to their comfy dormitory or apartment bedrooms for the night, no doubt utterly exhausted after having raised all of that awareness.
Unfortunately, it appears that those most in need of raised awareness are the student members of UGA Habitat, whose activities – topped off by the supremely insulting cardboard sleepover – display either a complete lack of comprehension about what it is that Habitat for Humanity as an organization does (and who it is that it helps), or a willful misrepresentation of the same for the purpose of garnering attention and donations, and adding to their membership new bleeding-heart adolescents who can actually be persuaded to believe that they are making a difference in the world by taking a few hour break from their video games to sit in cardboard boxes.
Then again, given the penchant for sensationalism present among liberal college-age activists, perhaps UGA Habitat would have a great deal of trouble recruiting members and getting people to sign up for events if these student activists – who prefer meaninglessly symbolic on-campus gestures (like sitting in cardboard boxes for a few hours in the name of homeless awareness, or stuffing themselves with a pancake dinner in the name of hunger awareness) to real work – became aware of the truth: that Habitat for Humanity has never housed an American homeless person. Furthermore, it has never given so much as a single free meal to a starving individual, nor provided a free house for a person with AIDS or any other disease (nor officially endorsed any activities raising “awareness” for the same).
Instead, Habitat for Humanity pursues the far nobler goal of using volunteer labor (a word that most college activists are as unfamiliar with as they are with its synonym, “work”) to construct affordable at-cost housing for those who have the job, income, and credit to qualify for a mortgage, but who have not been able to own a house before due to a variety of reasons.
From Habitat International’s own website (emphasis added):
Habitat is not a giveaway program. In addition to a down payment and the monthly mortgage payments, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor — sweat equity — into building their Habitat house and the houses of others.
Habitat for Humanity is the ultimate marketplace result of the compassionate conservative mindset in action: men and women willingly volunteering their time to help those who are doing (and will continue to do) their utmost to help themselves, and rewarding those who have been good stewards of their time and their money, and who simply need one final push to get over the top, and to become a homeowner.
Unfortunately, “good credit,” “homes for those who qualify and are willing to work for them,” and other merit-based attributes are not exactly slogans that resonate with today’s activist college students – a demographic which is intent on passively (and sweatlessly) making their mark in the world by raising “awareness” about the plight of the undeserving, rather then by actually working to make a difference by helping those who have themselves worked to succeed in life.
[Author's disclosure: Jeff served on the PR Board of the Athens-Oconee (GA) Habitat for Humanity in 2005.]
They think things like Take Back the Night matter. The good news is that they'll be insurance adjusters inside of three years -- effectively taking them out of the value-added marketplace and making them a lot more cynical in short order.
Think of it this way: If they didn't waste their time this way, they might do things that matter. We'd have a different set of headaches with which to deal.
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We are all heroes, you and Boo and I. Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!
In this activity, representatives of UGA Habitat attempt to raise awareness among their fellow students for the plight of the homeless by building cardboard huts out of their used pizza, DVD player, and HDTV boxes, placing those “homes” at the student center in the middle of campus, and then sitting around in them for a few hours at a time – while listening to music and eating pizza and other fast food – before retiring to their comfy dormitory or apartment bedrooms for the night, no doubt utterly exhausted after having raised all of that awareness.
What these young minds of mush don't realize is that the college eg-i-ma-k-shun they are about to receive won't prevent them from one day living in those cardboard houses.
That is, unless they adhere to the only thing that will keep them out of a cardboard house - Work for a living, hard and long and save your money. The homeless ranks are filled with degreed individuals, and while some are just plain down on their luck, many have been lulled into a sense of security by the government handout programs and don't know how to get out of that spiral.
Sorry about the rant, I'm just sayin'...