Prospectives

Student Explores Issues of Homelessness in NYC

by Samantha Polon

Tuesday March 7, 2006

Deciding what to do for conference work is always a struggle. With supportive teachers the possibilities for fieldwork and research are endless. Depending on the class, the teacher may recommend colleagues to speak to or novels to read, but for most students the choice is left up to them.

Students take advantage of the freedom they are given. Writing about everything from sex to racial conflict, research takes them into local communities and far away countries. We as students have the freedom to learn about what interests us most unhindered by requirements and restrictions.

I have always enjoyed the freedom that professors at Sarah Lawrence gave me, so when it came time to decide on a conference topic for my psychology class, I wanted to do a project that involved a lot of fieldwork. Spending so much time in New York City, I frequently see homeless men and women begging for money or sleeping on benches. The homeless are often marginalized by a society that does not try to understand complex communities, past lives and struggles within the welfare system. Most people are quick to judge the homeless as dirty, mentally impaired and unfit to rejoin society.

For my conference work I chose to investigate how society’s treatment of the homeless was based on a merely visual picture, as few people stop to actually give money or hear the homeless’ stories.

To discover how the perception of me as an individual would change by simply altering my appearance, I decided to pose as a homeless panhandler.

The first time that I dressed as a homeless person, my first thoughts were about material things. I worried about how I was going to make it on the train into the city without my music and when my next shower would be. It was only later that I noticed I never had to worry about when my next meal would be. My ripped and stained jeans, large flannel shirt and gas station hat could not mask years of a privileged life.

Before I actually begged for money in the subways, I went into the city and took trains, walked around and gauged people’s reactions to my appearance and demeanor. The only thing that I changed about myself was my clothes, but people still saw me as homeless.

Looks of pity and fear were commonplace and many people went out of their way to get away from me in coffee shops and other public spaces.

After several weeks of research and trips into the city dressed as a homeless woman, I felt I was ready to beg for money. I sat two levels below ground with a sign that read "Homeless 2 years. Please Help."

At that point in my experiment, I was somewhat used to the stares of disgust and the well dressed women who would pointedly move away from me on the subway. People made no small point of finding new seats or moving across entire train platforms just to escape being within a few feet of me.

Growing up in a suburb of Boston, the problem of homelessness never really affected me. The streets of my hometown of Newton, Massachusetts are lined with nice houses and evenly spaced trees, with Volvos and minivans dotting the driveways. On the occasion that I went into Harvard Square, friends and I would give our dinner leftovers to the street men holding signs that said "Vietnam Veteran."

Being a former New Yorker, my mother always advised me against giving money to the homeless, saying that they would only use it to buy drugs or alcohol.

When I was 13, I volunteered at Rosie’s Place, a shelter for women and children in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. I spent an entire day scrubbing out ovens and doing dishes just so that the families could have a warm meal. I had never felt more accomplished.

When the meal was over, we were saying goodbye to the ladies and the other volunteers when an older woman came up and said to me, "Thank you so much for leaving the suburbs to help us po’ black folk."

I was devastated, because more than anything I wanted these women to know that I viewed them as equals. They were struggling to make it and I desperately wanted them to succeed. To the woman who made the remark, I believe that she had her guard up because of so many hateful stares and disgusted looks. Her past experiences kept her from accepting that I just wanted to help.

I never could have understood her motivation for saying such a hurtful thing until I actually experienced those same hateful stares and disgusted looks. In the whole time that I sat at the 51st street station, only two people put money into my Styrofoam cup.

My conference research is not finished yet and, I intend to do an overnight stay in a shelter and hopefully speak to some homeless individuals about their experiences.