Eleanor Bader Homeless On Campus

Homeless on campus?! Has one ever heard of such a thing? Well it’s a real situation happening all over the United States. Eleanor J. Bader is the author of a short story called Homeless on Campus. Bader wrote about how some students attending college are or have recently become homeless. She hopes to catch the attention of colleges and raise awareness to help those homeless college students in need. Bader does this by showing different ways in which students attend college and live their everyday lives knowing they are homeless.

The first story readers will read about in Bader’s book Homeless on Campus, is about a young twenty-eight-year-old girl named Aesha, who had to leave home with her one-year-old son due to her abusive child’s father.

Aesha attends Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York. Since leaving her home, Aesha and her son spent thirty days living in a temporary shelter and then from there went to the Emergency Assistance Unit (EAU). After leaving the EAU, Aesha and her son were brought to a shelter in Queens, New York, far away from where she attends school. Aesha gets up every morning at five to drop her son off at a friend’s house before leaving on a train to Brooklyn. “The schools should do more. They have a child care center on my campus, but they only accept children two and up. It would have helped if I could’ve brought my son to day care at school.” (Bader pg.695) Aesha also believes that “colleges should maintain emergency housing for homeless students.” (Bader pg. 695), a place students who have nowhere to go, can go.
Adriana Broadway has lived in ten different places with ten different families since becoming homeless.

Adriana sent an application to the LeTrende Education Fund for Homeless Children, a scholarship program administered by the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, explaining her story in hopes they would be able to help her. Adriana was eventually awarded a grant from LeTrende to help her out financially with school. Jenn Hecker, the organizing director of the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness says, “Each year at our national conference, homeless students come forward to share their stories” (Bader pg.694) in hopes they will be given money to cover the costs of housing and food. Hecker “blames rising housing costs to be the reason so many students are becoming homeless” (Bader pg.694). Supporters for the homeless have seen many college students sleeping in their cars and sneaking into the school’s gym to take a shower and change their clothes. One college that is helping out students is San Diego City College. Rosa LaMuraglia, dean of the San Diego City College of Business, Information Technology, and Cosmetology, said, “the campus has taken several steps to help needy and homeless students, including running a pantry for free food and opening the thrift store Fantastique last January.” (The San Diego Union-Tribune, Warth)

Mary Jean LeTrende, a retired Department of Education administrator and creator of the LeTrende Education

Fund believes “no college has ever asked for help in reaching homeless students. Individual colleges have come forward to help specific people, but there is nothing systematic like there is for students in elementary and high school.” (Bader pg.696) Alongside Mary Jean LeTrende, Barbara Duffield states
“There is a very low awareness level amongst colleges. People have this ‘you can pull yourself up from the bootstrap’ myth about college. There is a real gap between the myth and the reality for those who are trying to overcome poverty by getting an education.” (Bader pg.696)
Duffield believes that college institutes were set up to serve fewer students and mostly the wealthier ones. Andrea Leskes, the vice president with the Association of American Colleges and Universities believes the poor are less visible. Leskes stated, “as a result, we are not successfully educating all the students who come to college today.” (Bader pg.696) Leskes is referring to the homeless students when she talks about not fully educating all students who are attending college today. She believes those students who are less fortunate need to take a stand for themselves.
I definitely agree that colleges should be stepping up and helping out homeless students in need.

I feel as if the colleges should be raising money or be helping out those in need financially by providing students with a meal plan and also providing students with housing. I feel that the homeless students who are looking for help should go speak to a counselor at the university or even try talking to the President of the school and voice their opinion on what the colleges should do to help. Faculty members have secretly been helping homeless students by letting them sleep in their offices. In doing that, those faculty members are risking their job but also at the same time they are stepping up to the plate and doing what is right to help others. This shows that the faculty members truly care for their students and want to see them do well in school. Every student attending a college just wants to become successful, but I feel as if the homeless students were helped out more by the colleges it would take a huge weight off of their

shoulders.
To conclude, colleges should definitely stand up and help those homeless students in need. College is already stressful enough with the work, exams and essays all needing to be done. Aesha and Adrianna are two perfect examples of homeless students who need the help. From being up at 5 in the morning to take a child to day care, to living in ten different places, the colleges should make it easier for students by aiding them with a child day care that takes children of all ages, but also providing housing for students who don’t know where they are going to be sleeping at night. The students given grants by the LeTendre fund are very lucky because not every homeless student is given that opportunity to be helped out financially. Colleges should reward those homeless students working hard and doing well in school with financial support because it shows that those students actually want to go somewhere with their life and earn a college degree to be able to get out of the situation they are living in.