A bandaid solution for homelessness

We’re no strangers to fundraisers.

They’ve been with us since grade school and seem to follow us everywhere. Everything needs money, it seems.

Of course it does. People need resources and sometimes our social programs fail us. Sometimes it’s not our social programs: it’s a country on another continent, a school that needs rebuilding, a non-profit that needs help with its efforts to help.

The fundraiser I remember most vividly is one that happened in the ninth grade. I remember my homeroom teacher asking everyone to donate some money or food items for the local food bank. The class was small, we all knew who had donated and who hadn’t. There was pressure that came with “being a good person”. I didn’t like it. I donated anyway. Of course I did. I was a good person, after all.

The whole thing, I thought, was pretty ironic. Many of the families at our high school were poor. The local food bank needed food because so many in our community needed food. Yet, the fundraiser was happening at our school, three blocks away from the food bank, and people who needed their food the most were being asked to donate, and unintentionally being pressured into donating. Was this really useful? Was it productive?

Not all campaigns are this futile in nature, or so unfortunately mistaken in their approach. Yet, it is important to remain critical of the fundraisers that we see around McMaster on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Due to the large student population, being pressured into donating isn’t a problem we face. However, we are constantly being asked to give money to causes.

Last week, the annual 5 Days for The Homeless (#5D4H) campaign took place outside of MUSC. The location was perfect, and the amount of money they raised wasn’t so bad either. The campaign started back in 2005 as a local initiative by the University of Alberta School of Business and went national in 2008. It has taking place at McMaster since. A group of Commerce students, members of DeGroote Impact, sleep outside the student centre regardless of the weather (unless it poses a health concern). They can also only consume foods that are donated to them by other people.
For the last few years, the campaign has been praised and criticized, yet it appears as though only the former has landed on the ears of the organizers. There are reasons to praise it. It does make money – money that the shelter (Notre Dame House) and those who use it really need and appreciate.

There are also reasons to criticize it. The first can be found in the campaign’s name. Is “The Homeless” really an appropriate way of referring to people who have faced the challenge of homelessness in their lives? The second is the public simulation of homelessness that takes place right outside our student centre. The participants can never fully understand what it means to be homeless, nor am I saying that they claim they can.

The participants record their reflections and the campaign on the 5 Days online blog. Last Monday, one of them wrote, “I am now reliant on other people and institutions to take basic care of myself and it’s hard to feel like I [can] be independent.”

The fact is that this sentence isn’t true. The participant does still have complete independence if she decided to stop following the rules, yet decided to word things in such a way that implied that she really understood how this feels. And she might, but posting the claim that you can understand how something like being dependent on others and government institutions feels in a matter of one day is harmful.

It is this sort of message being communicated by the participants that’s raising so much criticism from so many people. Although they seem to have grasped the privilege that they hold to some extent, the campaign is failing to raise awareness in an impactful way, or to help educate the McMaster community on the issues they’re spending five days for outside in the cold.

I know the participants have good intentions, and they are probably good people who really do care. No one is saying otherwise. This campaign has garnered so much attention over the years and seeing a great opportunity for raising awareness properly and educating people being wasted is unfortunate.

The money raised from this campaign is really a band-aid solution. If the campaign isn’t pushing for systemic change, educating people, and doing something more than sleeping outside of MUSC to raise money, then I don’t believe that it is living up to its true potential. The goal of the campaign, as with all campaigns that tackle social issues, should be to help create a society where the campaign is no longer needed.

No campaign will ever be perfect and no participant of this campaign will ever be an expert on homelessness. Instead of being defensive and shaming those who criticize this campaign, the participants and their supporters should take the time to think about why the campaign is being criticized. In the discussions I’ve read and participated in about this campaign, it seems that there is a general consensus that there are definitely things to improve on.

The campaign and its participants might have good – even great – intentions, yet this doesn’t act as a shield against criticisms. Good intentions don’t always translate into good actions, and holding on to the belief that the intentions are the be-all end-all of implementing change can be harmful.

When serving others, when doing something with the intention of making someone else’s life easier, it’s not your ego that matters. It’s time the campaign acknowledges the criticisms and invites its critics to have an open discussion about its approach.