Schools

Homeless Tell Experiences to Oakton Kids Sleeping In Boxes

The students built cardboard boxes to sleep in to raise awareness of homelessness; they also listened to formerly homeless people talking about life on the streets.


By Pam DeFiglio, Patch.com

Gloria Carter, who was formerly homeless, had Oakton Community College students listening intently as she told them what it was like to wander the streets without permanent shelter. 

She spoke Monday evening at the college's Skokie campus, after students had spent hours building cardboard "shanties." They planned to sleep in them Monday night to raise awareness of homelessness, in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity.

But inside, Carter and other formerly homeless people featured in Karen Skalitzy's book were telling of life on the streets.

"The hardest time was around 3:30 a.m.," Carter said. "And you had to watch your back."

Daytime was not easy either. "You'd walk the streets in the daytime wondering where you're going to lay your head that night," she recalled.

And after having grown up in a stable home, she said, she was suddenly in the company of types of people she had never been around before. 

"During my association with drugs, I ended up in the penal system," she said. The first time didn't snap her out of it, and she used drugs again afterward. But the second time got her attention.

"Any thought of using was gone," she said. "I wondered how did I get in this situation?"

And while a homeless person may have limited time and resources to build a cardboard shanty, the Oakton students put effort into theirs. 

John Bendewald of Northbrook, who graduatead from Glenbrook North, had build a low-slung shelter out of cardboard boxes. 

Asked how he got interested in the project, he said, "I saw a list of different clubs at Oakton, and Habitat for Humanity was the only one I thought sounded interesting. So I showed up for a meeting." 

His experience with homelessness has been limited.

"I've encountered homeless people on the street (in Chicago)," he said. "I didn't know how to react to them."

Jason Nwosu, who lives in Des Plaines and graduated from Maine West, said he learned about the Shantytown project in his Emerging Leaders club. 

"It would be a great way to learn what it would be like if I didn't have a home," he said.

He and student John Beyer had built an elaborate shanty out of cardboard, compete with a front porch, an enclosed yard and even a window box filled with flowers. It took them five hours on Monday.

"It was fun building it," Nwosu said.

Marvin Bornschlegl, a faculty adviser to the Habitat club, and who teaches in the Human Services and Substance Abuse Counseling program, said students talked about the fact they enjoyed the creativity that went into the building process, and wondered whether homeless people ever had fun.

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