Twenty students spent the night in cardboard boxes on the steps of Cafe Ventanas on Nov. 16 — in 60-degree weather — to raise awareness and gain perspective on those in San Diego who live that way every day.
Approximately 20 students camped out on the Cafe Ventanas steps and ate food from an impromptu soup kitchen on the night of Nov. 16 to raise awareness for the homeless.
The event, called Box City, was sponsored by both the campus organization Community Outreach Effort and the California Public Interest Research Group and featured a soup kitchen organized by John Muir College senior John Almon. Also, guest speakers addressed the topic of homelessness.
Eleanor Roosevelt College freshman and CalPIRG and C.O.R.E. member Fran Nanadiego organized Box City in hopes to engage students in a night that would be an eye-opening experience.
“What we’re trying to do tonight is to press the issue of homelessness and to push politicians to do something about it,”” Nanadiego said.
During the event, students decorated cardboard boxes and, to their best ability, made them into a home for the night. They also listened to speakers, ate vegetable chili for dinner from a specially set-up soup kitchen and slept in the cold with nothing but the clothes on their back and old pages of newspaper as insulation.
Students listened to Brother Benno Homeless Shelter Assistant Director Frank Doherty and Executive Director of the Regional Task Force of the Homeless John Thelen spoke about the situation that homeless people face and what students could do to help.
“The biggest cause of homelessness is the economic issue,”” Thelen said. “Twenty-five percent of the homeless work full- or part-time jobs but cannot make enough to pay for rent. It is embarrassing for many who are applying for a job but [have] no address to put down.””
The organizations originally planned to make the event a fundraiser, but event planners were not able to execute those plans.
Several students, such as ERC freshmen Arthur Vigil and Brianna Martin, were surprised by the event’s purpose.
“[The speech] offered me something that I could do beyond tonight,”” Vigil said.
Ultimately, the night ended in success, organizers said. UCSD students willingly put themselves in a situation that made them cold, hungry and tired after a fretful night spent in a cardboard box, but they walked away with an increased sense of the homeless experience and with a desire to help those who were in such situations.
“Although it was hard, I don’t think too many UCSD students know [what] it’s like to be poor, so I think this was an eye-opening experience,”” Revelle College senior Esteban Gonzales said.
While organizers said that the event was a success, ERC freshman and event participant Meg Gray said that more needs to be done to address the issue of homelessness.
“I think the people that were out here are the number of people that actually care about this issue,”” Gray said.
