After aiding the elderly and homeless during Spring Break in Washington, D.C., Syracuse University students now hope to lend a hand in Syracuse.

Students who went on an alternative Spring Break trip are forming a group called Power in Numbers. The organization wants to raise awareness and help end hunger and homelessness in the area, said Chantal Perets, a sophomore psychology and public relations major.

On any given day in Onondaga County, more than 424 individuals and families are homeless and reside in shelters, according to the Housing and Homeless Coalition of Syracuse and Onondaga County. More than 1,700 young people in Onondaga County do not have a permanent home.

Perets said she and others were inspired by the trip to bring change in the Syracuse community.

“We want to bring awareness of the cause to Syracuse and do what we can for the Syracuse community because we learned that when you have a large group of people motivated and interested in making a difference, it becomes really easy to make that difference,” she said.

In 2013, the city of Syracuse’s poverty rate was 34.3 percent, according to the New York State Community Action Association’s poverty report. Forty-nine percent of children in Syracuse also live below the poverty line, compared to Buffalo’s 46 percent and Rochester’s 50.4 percent.

While in D.C., students took the opportunity to connect with the homeless. Kyle Wilkinson, a senior environmental policies, planning and law student at SUNY-ESF, said when the students went to the D.C. Central Kitchen, the students cooked and ate meals with homeless people.

Wilkinson said the people at the kitchen are constantly ignored and neglected.

“Some of them were even saying, ‘Wow, this is really amazing. I’m actually having an intelligent conversation with somebody who sees me for who I am,’” he said.

Perets and other students said they have noticed a problem with the perception of homeless people in the Syracuse community.

Perets said there is “definitely a stigma” and negative connotation about homelessness.

“I think people make stereotypes, like the money that they are asking for are being used for drugs, but the thing is, you learn to break down those stereotypes and stigmas because you only know for sure by talking to a person,” she said.

Olivia McVoy, a sophomore social work major who also went on the trip, said that many people believe in stereotypes that describe homeless people as lazy or ex-convicts.

“I was one of those people, I had no idea what to expect because I had only heard the negative connotations of being hungry and homeless,” she said. “I feel like everybody comes in with these stereotypes in their heads because that’s all that we really learn.”

Before she went on this trip for the first time, McVoy said she would put her head down and walk away like they didn’t exist. Now, when she sees homeless people on Marshall Street, she said she gives them extra change or food.
“That’s where the problem starts,” she said. “We marginalize these people in invisibility.”
Perets also said her perception of homeless people has changed since the trip.
Said Perets: “My perspective has changed in that I don’t look at them as homeless people, I look at them as people.”

Published on March 18, 2014 at 1:52 am

Contact Ellen: ekmeyers@syr.edu | @ellenkmeyers