Habitat Inhabits Marsh Plaza
An overnight to dramatize the need for better housing
Click on the slide show above to hear Zach Horowitz (SMG’10), president of BU’s Habitat for Humanity chapter, talk about last week’s sleepout.
If you strolled past Marsh Plaza last Thursday or Friday night and were alarmed by the sight of 30 students sleeping in boxes, rest assured: the economy had not yet forced them into the streets.
But the recession did motivate the BU chapter of Habitat for Humanity to do something for those who sleep in the streets regularly. Last week’s Sleepout was both a fundraiser to help improve local housing conditions and, more important, an awareness-raiser on issues of housing and homelessness.
“The idea is for people to see us. It makes them think about the shelter they have and of other people who are less fortunate,” said Zachary Horowitz (SMG’10) on the eve of the event.
While the connection to homelessness is obvious, Mary Kowal (CAS‘10) says the event aimed to make people aware of substandard housing as well as of homelessness. “That’s what the boxes represent,” she says. “Imagine that you have a house and your electricity gets cut off. What we are doing is similar to going a night with the discomfort of not having heat.”
Each participant was encouraged to raise $100 by asking passersby for whatever they could spare. They managed a total of $2,900. The money will go toward a longer-term goal — rehabbing a unit on Dacia Street in Dorchester, an area where 15 houses have been foreclosed within a three-block radius. The group hopes to raise the $50,000 by summer and start work in the fall.
But it wasn’t all drudgery and discomfort for those camped on Marsh Plaza. Sleepout participants enjoyed performances from a juggling group, salsa lessons, and popsicle-stick and Lego construction contests. “The biggest surprise to everyone is how much fun people actually have,” says Horowitz. “But the reality is after two nights out there, we can go home and take a nap.
“Not everyone is that lucky.”
Edward A. Brown can be reached at ebrown@bu.edu.
Comments & Discussion
Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.