Spare change?

*Post #2 - scroll down to "And so it begins..." for Post #1

Adam and I decided that the first thing we needed to do was to find cardboard to make our panhandling signs. While digging through a few trash bags on a residential sidewalk that hadn't yet been collected, I could feel the eyes of the passerby stealing glance after glance at our raccoon behavior. Interestingly enough, I felt satisfied that I was finally playing this role...a sort of sick pride that these people had fallen for our guises. We came out with a few salvageable pieces of cardboard and set off on our next goal: find a park or construction site where we could dirty up our clothes.

In our search for a park, we walked through the George Washington University campus. It was an extremely peculiar and somewhat unsettling feeling to walk through a college campus. I found that no longer did I feel like I was a college student, or like someone who could relate to these young people that roamed the sidewalks. Instead, I felt like an outsider, a spectacle. Rather than meeting my glances, most of my peers did everything they could to avoid eye contact. As we walked, my mind struggled to grasp what was going through their heads. I asked myself how I would feel if I saw a scraggly, greasy haired, poorly dressed girl walking across the Quad, attempting to make eye contact with me. Would I feel uncomfortable? Guilty? Awkward? Sympathetic?

Adam and I stumbled upon a construction site and hopped the fence. We sat on the ground and basically lathered up our outfits with dirt. At this point, I think I now made a supremely convincing homeless person. From there we walked a few blocks to venture into a Catholic bookstore. One of the tips the Coalition had given us was to assume a low energy and somewhat depressed state of existence, for the simple reason that homeless people are generally broken people. As pumped as I was for this experience, it was easy to see that too sunny a demeanor would instantly blow our cover. Still, it was too early for me to vocally pretend to be homeless, so I let Adam do the talking in the bookstore. In a quiet and depressed tone, he asked the saleswoman if she could point us in the direction of a shelter. The woman was very pleasant and told us about a church a few blocks away that served lunch. We learned that apparently being stranded after a rally is a common occurrence in D.C., because on our way out she asked where we were from and if we had come in for the rally. We fed her our lines, and then literally, as soon as we had stepped foot out of the doorway, the skies tore open. The saleswoman joked that we needed an umbrella…then realized who she was talking to. It was awkward on both ends.

Social experiment number two was to go to a fancy hotel and ask to use the bathroom. We trampled into the Hilton Regency looking a bit like drowned rats. I trudged up to the front desk and, in my best defeated voice, asked where the restroom was located. To my surprise, the man behind the desk couldn't be kinder. Warmly, he told us where it was. [Later, we talked about this exchange with our guide, Steve. He told us that because we didn't smell, we were young, we were white, and it was our first time in there, of course they would be considerate. They wanted us to get in, get out, and never return. If it had been an older black man who routinely asked to use the restroom, it could assured that he would be asked to leave.]

At our next stop, Borders, we bee-lined to the magazine rack, and I pulled out a Glamour to flip through. Sure enough, after a few minutes, a store manager had made his post about four feet away from me, watching my every move like a hawk. Thanks to his hovering presence, I began to feel guilty, despite the fact I hadn't even done anything.

It was nearing lunch-time, so Adam and I trekked back out into the rain to try our luck at finding table scraps. We literally walked into three different Potbelly's, two Corner Bakerys, two Quizno's, a Subway, and a gigantic mall food court, scavenging for unwanted food left at tables. As it turned out, people tend to promptly clean up their area and the table scraps mission soon became mission impossible. Because we were failing miserably at finding leftovers, we tried a new tactic. We asked the restaurant employees if we could sweep or bus tables in exchange for a sandwich or bag of chips. We were denied every single time. At a particular sandwich shop, the worker curtly replied, “No!” and proceeded to ignore me, even though I was standing directly in front of her.

After completely striking out on the food front, we decided that maybe it was time to try our luck at panhandling. We hunkered down outside a CVS at the corner of 13th and Pennsylvania, right in the heart of the government district. Adam scrawled out on his piece of cardboard, “On the streets. Need bus ticket money. HUNGRY.” My sign simply read, “Homeless and Hungry.” We set a styrofoam cup out in front of us and began asking passerby for spare change.

“Spare change, Sir?” “Spare change, Ma'am?” As my voice rung out, I sat and watched the people process my call, and then deliberately choose to ignore my existence. Eyes decidedly straight ahead, they walked on. I knew they heard me; I literally could see the wheels turning within their heads. And yet, they breezed right on by me without a backwards glance. It was as if I had suddenly become invisible; I no longer existed. To them, I was as much as part of the scenery as the light post, the trash can, and the gum on the ground. To them, I was nothing.

Thankfully, although the majority of people neglected to acknowledge Adam and I, a few people did respond to our pleas. One well-dressed man walked over to us, crouched down to our level, and began to ask us questions. “How did you two end up here?” “You need a bus ticket? How much do those cost?” All of his questions made me nervous; it was like we were being grilled. And as we weaved our tale of being stranded and needing bus tickets back to St. Louis, I felt like the biggest fake in the world. The man listened intently to our story and then told us that if we came back to this corner the next day, he would make sure that we were taken care of. Basically, he just told us that he would buy Adam and I both bus tickets. He walked away, and Adam and I sat stunned at his generosity and ashamed that we were the ones to benefit.

And so it begins...

Over spring break this past March, I went on an Alternative Spring Break trip to Washington, D.C. to learn more about homelessness. Eleven other students and I participated in the Homeless Challenge (Urban Plunge) through the National Coalition for the Homeless in order to experience homelessness first hand. This is my story.


6:29 a.m........6:30 a.m. The instant my phone alarm began to blare its tinny tune, I was already up and out of my sleeping bag, excited to begin this new adventure of life on the other side. I'm not even sure if I had actually fallen asleep the night before―it was the whole “kid-on-Christmas-Eve” syndrome. Except this Christmas was more 'trash bag' than 'toy bag.'

That morning marked a full week since my last shower. A thick layer of invisible grime had settled into my skin, making even the cleanest of clothes feel sullied. The grease on my scalp plastered my hair to the crown of my head...I looked like a 12 year old boy who had overdosed on L.A. Looks hair gel. But I was not complaining one bit; I wanted to embrace this opportunity to the fullest, to do my best to experience the many discomforts the homeless deal with every single day. In an effort to really go for the gold, I may or may not have actually borrowed a can of Crisco from the kitchen and sprayed it liberally throughout my mane. Let's just say that it was an unexpected bonus that the Crisco smelled like week-old compost.

Changing into my trusty pair of old black sweatpants, a 10-year-old worn and stained T-shirt, and a faded, neon Windy City Balloon Port sweatshirt circa 1986, it was as if I had just stepped off a runway in Milan..... though perhaps not. I stocked my backpack with a half roll of toilet paper (you never know), a pair of dirty mittens, a warm scarf, and an old, label-less water bottle. Then I wrapped my sleeping bag up in a garbage bag and tied it to my backpack with a piece of string. The final touch to my new homeless get-up was a good old Hefty bag to carry all of the treasures I would surely find on the street.


After downing a small breakfast of a Dixie cup full of cheerios, our brave group of 12 set out to the National Coalition for the Homeless headquarters to divide into pairs and meet up with our guides. During the Homeless Challenge, participants typically meet up with a guide at night to ensure their safety, and the guide is someone who is or has been homeless in Washington, D.C. My partner Adam and I, and another pair, Luna and Kaitlin, were assigned to Steve's group. Our guide Steve was 6'3” and 300 pounds―I couldn't be happier that he would be our protector that night. Because, seriously, who in their right mind would mess with that?

After brief introductions, Steve dove right in and inquired about our “homeless stories.” Part of the program involved coming up with a believable backstory of how we became homeless. Following Steve's advice, Adam and I were now teenagers who had came to D.C. a few days ago for the rally, but now were stranded. Apparently, we were not yet smelly enough to pretend that we had been in the area longer than a few days. Steve then told us to meet him out front of the ESPN Zone at E and 11th at 9 o' clock that night. And with that, we were off!