Helping Homeless Students on Campus

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Helping the Homeless Students on Campus “Advocates for the homeless report countless examples of students sleeping in their cars and sneaking into a school gym to shower and change clothes. They speak of students who couch surf or camp in the woods- bicycling or walking to classes- during temperature weather. Yet, for all the anecdotes, details about homeless college students are hazy” says Eleanor J. Bader (695). Most people don’t think and care about this population because they don’t think they are that important, but in fact, they need our help the most. Because nobody tries to help them or support them: “Without housing , access to a workspace, or access to a shower, students’ lives suffer, their grades suffer, and they are more likely to drop classes, if not withdraw entirely from school. I’ve seen it happen,” says Amit Rai, an English professor at a large, public university in Florida (qtd in Bader 697). And it is time to help the homeless students to find a place to stay and in the long run, it will help many students to graduate college successfully. Every homeless students have their own different journeys about how they become homeless so, it is hard to define the specific reason for all their struggles. For example, Aesha is a 20 yrs old at Kingsborough community college in Brooklyn, New York. She became homeless because her boyfriend became physically abusive towards her, so she left with her son. She struggles to find a place to stay and it doesn’t help her to keep up with the work of college (Bader 693). Asad Dahir was homeless in several countries. He and his family are originally from Somalia, they left their country due to civil war and ended up in refugee camp in Kenya. Now, they are resettled in Ohio, but high housing costs kept them homeless (Bader 694). Even though, there are many students are like this,
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