Last weekend I went to the National Student Conference Against Hunger and Homelessness at Rutgers University. It was a little disorganized, but in spite of that I learned a lot and got some really great new ideas about what college campuses can do about homelessness.
Many of these new ideas came from talking with the Speakers' Bureau Coordinator for the
National Coalition of the Homeless, Michael O'Neill, and one of their speakers, Jesse Smith. The Speakers' Bureau travels around the country putting on "Faces of Homelessness" panels on college campuses and for various community groups. At the conference they held one of these panels (which I unfortunately missed because of plane delays), but I have seen similar events in the past.
These panels that let students (or other groups) see what homelessness is like are a great way to break stereotypes about homelessness. In addition, the National Coalition for the Homeless makes it really easy to organize one. They have a
form that you can fill out and then your school pays for their transportation, lodging (they're not picky, at the conference we slept on a church floor), and an honorarium for the speakers. I would really encourage anyone with a budget who wants to raise awareness about homelessness to host one of these panels.
