The SREHUP Story: From Failure to Cozy Cottages
Chapter 1: A brief history
“Your class was eye-opening for me. I learned about horrifying injustices in the world- many that I — as an American voter, taxpayer, and consumer- am contributing to. And I feel hopeless and helpless to effect any change. I’m depressed. I feel paralyzed.” The words stared at me from my computer screen. They shook me to my core.
Since 2003 I had been teaching World Civilization courses at Villanova University and exposing my college students to issues of global poverty in my courses. I was asking my students to make connections between our choices and human suffering. I wanted to awaken in them compassion for others, but reading this email I realized that I gave my students no outlet for this pain and awareness. No action plan. No hope for a better tomorrow.
In the days after I received this email I continued to wrestle with this problem. I had trouble sleeping. I kept questioning what good was an education, what use was my teaching, if not to inspire and move my students to action?
The answer to this question came on a cold and rainy December morning in 2010. I was driving in my car and listening to 90.9 FM- WHYY’s NPR outlet. The show was Here and Now. I was lulled by the voices of college students. I remembered that I had grading to do. Suddenly I was listening to the solution to the problem that had been nagging me since the student’s email, keeping me up at night with worry. These college students were describing the homeless shelter in Harvard Square that they operated, and they were calling on others to follow suit. This was my eureka moment. I would take up their call to action. I would harness my students’ passion to make a difference, their boundless energy, their empathy and compassion, their deep concern for human suffering. And I would get to work opening a homeless shelter in Philly staffed it with my college students.
My students were excited when I returned to school and shared with them my idea of opening a student-run homeless shelter. They all wanted in. We had a lot of spirit- but very little knowledge of what it would take to run a shelter.
The first thing we did was make the trip to Harvard’s student run shelter over spring break to see it in action. At the end of that week I brought my students to a small coffee shop in Boston and said, “we’ve seen what this entails. We can stop now. Or we can press on. What do you want to do?” They were more motivated than ever. That or heavily caffeinated. In either event, we came back to Philly and got to work. Within 6 months we had lawyers, insurance agents, a location, a 50c3 status from the IRS, and sleep deprivation. We also had a name: Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia, or SREHUP. We opened our doors and our hearts on November 1st, 2011. This shelter served to get my students out of their plastic bubble and expose them to people and circumstances that changed their world views.
The relationship between Philadelphia’s students and the homeless guests is mutually beneficial. Students get hands-on experience in running an organization. They have the opportunity to learn skills such as grant-writing and fundraising, as well as staff management and problem solving. They will also learn about team work, and the power each individual has to make a positive difference. The experience of running a shelter allows these students to break out of their normal and comfortable environment. They put names and faces to the problem of homelessness and develop relationships with the homeless guests that compel them to reconsider some of their ideas about poverty, homelessness and citizenship. They also start to comprehend the structural barriers that are in place which make it difficult to climb out of homelessness. After graduation SREHUP students often go on to work for the systemic changes that are needed to fix the problem of homelessness, so that shelters are no longer needed in the future.
Homeless guests also benefit from the experience of staying at a student-run shelter. Students who work at the shelter have qualities that are unique to emerging adulthood: optimism, focus, willingness to listen to people’s stories, and motivation to do something good for the world. The students, who do not yet have family commitments, have a large amount of time and energy to dedicate to the homeless guests. Students who are not yet jaded or burnt-out are willing listeners for the guests who have more life experience than the students. As volunteers, they show the guests that they are there not for monetary compensation, but because they genuinely care for the wellbeing of the individuals in the shelter.
While my students were changed by the experience of running a shelter, they were also in a position to create meaningful change. The unmatched level of energy and enthusiasm of young adults gives college students an advantage when dealing with the struggles of the marginalized and oppressed. While in their peak period of optimism, college students are able to join the fight to end homelessness with an extremely hopeful disposition. This enhances their genuine fearlessness when dealing with tough situations. Students learn valuable lessons about leadership, problem solving, public service. Students are also forward thinking, and offer innovative ideas for ending homelessness. They aren’t jaded by the system, and they creatively envision different, more humane possibilities for our future and our communities. They personalized homelessness, and developed relationships with the guests that compelled them to reconsider some of their ideas about poverty, and what “justice for all” truly means. After graduation SREHUP students are better prepared than most to work for policy changes that are needed to reduce homelessness.
The year that SREHUP opened the city’s largest shelter- Ridge Center Homeless Shelter- shuttered its doors. At the time there was an average of 170 people experiencing homelessness who died on the streets of Philadelphia every year- from treatable illnesses like the flu, hypothermia, as well as from acts of violence. Homeless outreach organizations in Philadelphia engage over 5,500 individuals each year living on the street, in cars, abandoned buildings, in train stations, and other places not meant for human habitation. There is a total of 12,000 shelter beds in the city, but approximately 16,000 needing access to those beds.
At any given point in time, the City estimates we have an average of 650 people living on the streets. My students learn this isn’t a problem we have always had, nor is it a problem to this extent in other places around the globe. Homelessness was not always a problem of the current magnitude in the US either. Homelessness became an epidemic here in the 1980s due to shifts in policy related to housing, wages, incarceration, healthcare, and education.
It is a moral necessity to end homelessness. It is also cost effective. Average US cities spend $62 million a year on 2,500 people living in chronic homelessness. That’s $24,800 per person- on things like ER visits and shelter stays.
Permanent supportive housing can yield a cost savings averaging more than $7,700 per person annually. That means it is less expensive to give a person an apartment, case manager, and wrap-around services then to allow people to live and die on the streets.
But these numbers are only part of the story. It is the relationships at SREHUP that are the most profound success story. Relationships between volunteers and clients, as well as relationships between SREHUP and other service providers, throughout the city, country, and world. At SREHUP, we are always learning from the very best in homeless prevention so that we can be our very best. We have traveled to San Francisco, LA, Eugene Oregon, Edinburgh Scotland, and elsewhere- always inspired by the wealth of innovation. I love traveling to new communities across the country and globe. To see how people in other places wrestle with the same problems we have- to learn from our collective spirit of innovation and problem solving. To borrow the best ideas from far away and to implement them back home. To remember that there are alternate ways of organizing ourselves. To imagine new realities. And to widen our nets and networks, and to make room for the possible.
It’s easy to become consumed by the news, and take a nose dive into depression from the division and pain we see all around us. We are social beings, and we want to feel connected, valued, understood, useful, and truly seen. While we humans have the capacity to cause so much destruction, we also have the ability to save each other and ourselves from despair. When we know another’s suffering, we find empathy for each other, and for ourselves. I always say SREHUP is all hands-on deck. People of all backgrounds, races, religions, ages, socioeconomic status, from all over Philadelphia have united in this mission of saving our neighbors. Together, we have helped save lives, and we have watched in awe as our vulnerable neighbors have worked to save themselves, and we are all a little better, a little freer, a little more whole- by participating and bearing witness to this struggle.
