1st Annual Homeless Awareness Day at UC Davis

Dear All,
I thought I would forward something I wrote about everything behind the
Homelessness Awareness Day at UC Davis as well as an update on where
we are with event. Please forward this email to every person on your
contact list and come out if you have a chance. Hopefully this event
can be a stimulus for social change for our homeless. I am thinking in
an idealistic college student fashion but anything is possible- sort
of at least!

Dear Readers,
This article is about an event activists and college students are planning at UC Davis for Feb 27th, 2007 at noon at the MU on the quad. Students and anti-poverty allies are putting together the 1st annual Homelessness and Hunger Awareness Day. The day has the goal of educating students at the UC Davis campus as well as community members about the needs of the homeless population as well as those who are impoverished in the Davis community. At the event we will have a rally comprising of homeless speakers, poets on homeless and poverty concerns, an open microphone for concerned community members and words of inspiration for our student leaders. We are also coordinating a resource fair where we are providing information for students who have an interest in volunteering with a social service agency that serves the homeless or the poor. Furthermore, we will also be collecting winter wear donations at the event.

The event is going to be held at the quad of the MU at 12 noon Tuesday
27th of Feb from 12pm till 1pm. Anyone is welcome to show up and speak
in the mic about concerns they may have or even about the wonderful
work they are doing for the impoverished. Just come out and hear from
the very people we are serving. Basically this whole thing at UC Davis really was inspired by the death of Jesse Newberry, the 24 year old homeless male who died last May in 2006 on
the rail road tracks by Freeborn Hall at UC Davis. On the 15th of Feb, 2007 the ASUCD Senate passed resolution 10 which designated a homeless awareness week at UC Davis. The students
also received funding approval for sound equipment and flyer's which
are crucial for publicity of the event. The 27th was chosen because
of the availability of the quad at the MU for a rally. The 21st of Feb
is the day of the National Homelessness Marathon broad-casted from
Fresno California this year so the 27th works out well with other
nationally coordinated homeless awareness events. Also, other
universities in the United States coordinate a National Homeless and
Hunger Awareness Week on November 12th through the 18th
(http://www.nationalhomeless.org/awareness )so this Hunger and Homelessness
Awareness Week at UC Davis is very similiar to Hunger weeks other
universities coordinate. The UC Davis chapter of Cal-Pirg coordinates
thier own Hunger and Homelessness campaign. They have a few projects
in the woorks they would like to coordinate this year like a sleep out
on campus and a hunger banquet.

The students have been very supportive and they are are putting a lot
of energy into the planning of the event to ensure its success. We
have contacted many in the community from the government sector,
homeless activists, Davis community members, leaders of student and
community groups and organizations. We have a tightly knit homeless
community in Davis and we have been getting the word out to the
homeless here. The Spare Changer, is a Non-profit 501-C3 and monthly
newspaper journal that educates the community of Davis about
homelessness through a monthly literature journal that is distributed
by homeless people in the community for a donation. HAGS is a group of
concerned homeless people and allies that advocates and organizes for
social change. Food not Bombs is another group that provides lunches
for the homeless every Sunday at Noon in Central Park. There are also
other non-profits in the community which are working for
the concerns of the homeless.

The challenges that remain for the event include getting an adequate
supply of flyer's out into the community and ensuring that we have
shelter from the rain if it indeed does rain on the day of the event.
At the event we hope to have homeless people speak, some homeless
poetry readers, statements from local politicians as well as a open
mic so that anyone from the homeless or poor community; even community
members in general can speak in reference to any concern that they may
have. We are also gathering information about social service agencies
that can use student volunteers and where the homeless people who do
attend the event can gain information about what resources are offered
to them. We are also having a community and campus wide resource drive
for clothing ( anything that can keep a homeless person warm).

We hope from the event that we can stimulate awareness on campus about
homelessness and in the community. This will ensure progress at
building community tolerance and understanding towards the homeless
and impoverished. Furthermore, it is unprecedented for a group of the
impoverished to mobilize together for the sake of social change. It
happens but infrequently. Members of our poor community are less
politically integrated than those of the community with higher income.
This is not hard to realize though because the impoverished have to
think about earning income for a wage and making sure the most
immediate resources important for life like food and shelter are met.
There is no time to read the political section of a California
political digest. What our homeless need are shelter opportunities and
an easier access to jobs. It would be great if the Davis Chamber of
Commerce would provide jobs for our homeless or even to assist them
with job training. Maybe we can get a group of UC Davis medical
students and doctors to do health screening, dental care and health
education for our homeless. Maybe we can have some in house
psychiatrists and therapists in private practice in the community
volunteer their time to do mental health outreach for our homeless.
What I am sort of going on a tangent about is getting more support for
the upward mobility of the homeless from the private sector and from
those influential in the community who are in the position to think of
new non-profit ideas and to provide direct care to the impoverished (
like medical doctors in the community for example). There are so many
ways that we can do better at serving our homeless. The government
sector works hard on homelessness concerns but the funding is very
limited. We have the Governors office thinking about cutting AB 1234
which is mental health outreach for special populations including the
homeless. If there is a cut to this program, almost 4000 people in
California will become homeless ( Housing California,
http://www.housingca.org).

If we mobilized our community around political issues central to
homeless concerns, at least Davis would become a community which will
advocate against social service cuts at the local , state and national
level for our homeless. I have ranted off task but raising awareness
for our homeless and increasing homeless advocacy is such a need.
Another great idea that come from this event is increasing educational
programs by actual city of Davis commissions specifically on the topic
of homelessness.

There are other student groups at UC Davis that provide service to the
homeless community through direct service like Help and Education
Leading to the Prevention of Homelessness, Student Homeless Outreach
Club, the Willow Project , Campus Mosaic and the UC Davis chapter of
Habitat for Humanity. For more information please contact me at richardcipian [at] gmail.com.

Best,

Richard Cipian