Monday, May 09, 2005
About a year ago, you might have heard of the NYU blogger who lived in a college library for over a semester, before he was discovered by university officials and given a place to stay. I remember thinking at the time, how would they deal with a student who couldn't afford housing here?
As happens every couple of months, Lee was kicked out of the room he was renting a couple weeks ago. Since then, he had taken to spending his nights on the sofas in a student lounge in Sibley Hall, where the architecture department is. He hadn't been there for more than a week, when Panna received the following email from the architecture majors' mailing list:
Subject: Lounge, third floor
From: (suppressed)
Date: Fri, April 29, 2005 10:02 am
To: (suppressed)
I have been informed that there may be a homeless person sleeping in the third floor lounge. If you see this person, do not approach them, but go to one of the red phones you will find in the hallway. Picking up the phone will connect you immediately to CU Police. When the phone is answered, please tell the police that you have seen this person in the lounge and they will come and take appropriate action. I do not know if this person is dangerous, but it is better not to approach them. Thanks.
I've always thought it laughable, the suspicion and apprehension with which those who have a little more look down upon those have just a little less. Or, in this case, the fear with which upper middle class Ivy-league students and officials look down upon a homeless person: ironically just a fellow student who has fallen on hard times. Maybe it's because I've never had much to lose, but I don't understand what could possibly be so bad about allowing a "homeless person" to stay a few nights in a university lounge. And if it is so bad, why the university police needs to be contacted, instead of politely asking the homeless person to stay somewhere else. Is it truly because of fear? Or is it that in our pampered elite-university lives, we simply don't want to have to deal with the homeless, or even acknowledge their existence?
Is it only worth looking up the ladder, and not looking down? My instinct tells me that one needs to jump off the ladder in the first place, to see the whole thing for what it is.
As happens every couple of months, Lee was kicked out of the room he was renting a couple weeks ago. Since then, he had taken to spending his nights on the sofas in a student lounge in Sibley Hall, where the architecture department is. He hadn't been there for more than a week, when Panna received the following email from the architecture majors' mailing list:
Subject: Lounge, third floor
From: (suppressed)
Date: Fri, April 29, 2005 10:02 am
To: (suppressed)
I have been informed that there may be a homeless person sleeping in the third floor lounge. If you see this person, do not approach them, but go to one of the red phones you will find in the hallway. Picking up the phone will connect you immediately to CU Police. When the phone is answered, please tell the police that you have seen this person in the lounge and they will come and take appropriate action. I do not know if this person is dangerous, but it is better not to approach them. Thanks.
I've always thought it laughable, the suspicion and apprehension with which those who have a little more look down upon those have just a little less. Or, in this case, the fear with which upper middle class Ivy-league students and officials look down upon a homeless person: ironically just a fellow student who has fallen on hard times. Maybe it's because I've never had much to lose, but I don't understand what could possibly be so bad about allowing a "homeless person" to stay a few nights in a university lounge. And if it is so bad, why the university police needs to be contacted, instead of politely asking the homeless person to stay somewhere else. Is it truly because of fear? Or is it that in our pampered elite-university lives, we simply don't want to have to deal with the homeless, or even acknowledge their existence?
Is it only worth looking up the ladder, and not looking down? My instinct tells me that one needs to jump off the ladder in the first place, to see the whole thing for what it is.
