USC’s annual Homelessness Awareness Week began Nov. 12, raising questions and ideas surrounding how much of a role the university should play in assisting homeless youth in the area and what exactly that role should be.
Homelessness Awareness Week is organized by the USC Homelessness Initiative, a committee founded in 2016 aiming “to address the wicked problem of homelessness” by researching real world ways to aid and assist those in the community affected by homelessness, per the history provided on their website.
Homelessness Awareness Week first took place on campus that same year and was supported by several different on campus groups such as the Interfaith Council, Public Policy School and School of Social Work, among others.
The programs over the years have often entailed film screenings, panel discussions, different types of networking events and social experiments aiming to replicate the experiences of those in dire circumstances. While all that is done in the hopes of raising awareness, some students recognize that awareness is only half the battle.
Jay Nair, a sophomore public policy major, spoke to how Awareness Week is part of a larger effort to turn raising awareness into making change.
“[There’s] there's a very fine line between advocacy and action, but both are definitely needed,” particularly in regards to issues that so often go unrecognized like college-age homelessness, Nair said.
A student who asked to be referred to as Maxwell, who is entering his final year at the fine arts school, found the agenda for Awareness Week to be particularly touching because it brought light to many students’ who feel they have “to put on a face for school and act like everything's okay when you've been basically up all night, cramped up and sick.”
“A lot of students are homeless, but nobody else knows they're homeless because there's… this stigma that's attached to being homeless. And that breaks my heart,” Maxwell explained, “[because] until I became homeless, I did not realize it was this bad.”
Maxwell also expressed his desire for USC to further evaluate what it can do for its homeless and at risk students.
“I think [these events are] good, but I want them to look more into [what the campus can do], because one size doesn’t fit all,” he said.
Alec Vandenberg, a volunteer for the Trojan Food Pantry and a senior at USC, expressed similar sentiments.
“[While the] USC initiative on homelessness has been instrumental in terms of the research framework, [the university] can and should do more [to combat homelessness],” Vandenberg said.
Vandenberg also argued the school has a responsibility to address the issue of gentrification among all of these discussions.
“We also need to address the elephant in the room, that the university does have a history of perpetuating gentrification. And, you know, we need to be aware about the community that we're in and make sure that our plans to…expand our efforts on and off campus...don't displace community members,” Vandenberg said.
This year’s proceedings began with a screening of the documentary “Venice Neverland,” directed and produced by Victoria Peralto Cruz, a former USC student who herself was homeless while attending the film school.
The film followed Cruz and her peers who she found refuge with around Venice beach during her struggles with homelessness. She believed that her depiction of the issue could help shatter stigmas because it focuses around the narrative of often neglected young people on the streets.
“I shied away from doing a documentary on adults that are homeless because I know how people think about adults [that are homeless],” Cruz said. “[People say] ‘Well, they must have done something to deserve to be there… They should get a job.’ But when I bring you 13-year-olds, and 15 and 16-year-olds, 19 [year-olds], you can’t tell me that they want to be there.”
A panel on college-age homelessness took place after the film’s screening, including guest speakers from the Trojan Food Pantry, Campus Activities, and Trojan Shelter. This comes one week after USC’s Trojan Shelter opened its first housing unit for homeless college students and just ahead of its grand opening and move in on Friday.
Homelessness Awareness Week will culminate in the Oxfam Hunger Banquet, “a simulation activity launched by Oxfam to better understand homelessness,” intending to replicate eating conditions under different privileged or underprivileged circumstances, according to the schedule of the week.
In the same vein of off-campus efforts and community, this year’s Homelessness Awareness Week comes alongside the North Area Neighborhood Council establishing its own homelessness committee. This committee plans to create an agenda that aids those currently homeless, as well as those in at risk living situations, around the USC area.
Yohaun Walker, co-chair of the homelessness committee, expressed that he felt “energized” about the work he and his peers have slated before them.
“We need to equip people to understand policies and who coordinates resources, giving people an understanding of the landscape,” Walker said.
Walker’s determination to break ground on this issue is rooted in his own personal experiences with homelessness, both first hand and through his family.
“For me, having family members with lived experience and being vulnerable to falling into homelessness myself a year ago, I just learned that the reality is that everyone is close to living a homeless experience. That fuels my belief that housing is a human right,”
Walker concluded by sharing his optimism for what they have already accomplished, saying “it’s great just to start the conversation on homelessness in this area.”
An all day photo and affordability exhibition is also slated for Tuesday on Trousedale Way, hoping to detail the real costs of trying to live in Los Angeles.