“Awareness” Weeks do Nothing

This week at the University of Scranton (and perhaps others) is “Homelessness and Hunger Week.” It’s a week to raise awareness. I have serious gripes about these sort of things. What exactly is proactive about telling people the homeless exist? We know that. But what really bothers me is the “Solidarity Sleep Out” they are having tonight.

This is basically an event where people can go spend the night outside to “raise awareness about homelessness,” to quote the facebook event. Great. So you pick a day in late March to sleep outside and say “Hey, we understand what you’re going through.” Later the event is described as “a big sleepover.” Yeah, lots of people do this. It’s called camping, and I don’t think the homeless will benefit from it at all. You’re basically saying, “I can sleep outside on a safe campus on a nice day.” If you really want to help the homeless, why not invite them to sleep in a spare room? Or put money towards a new shelter. Raise money and help build a new shelter. Habitat for Humanity does stuff like that all the time. Further their cause. But don’t sleep outside in “solidarity” when you actually have no idea what they go through. I am not saying I do. I’m not pretending though.

This goes for all “awareness” weeks. I feel like they do nothing but shove one group’s agenda down your throat without actually doing something constructive to further the cause. Feel free to argue with me in the comments. Prove me wrong. Or support me. I don’t care. Just try to keep it clean.