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The Hidden Homeless on College Campuses | Shawntae Harris | TEDxYDL

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    [ Music ]
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    [applause]
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    >> Thank you all.
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    Do you remember the moment when you realized
    what you wanted to do with your life?
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    I do. It was just a couple years back and
    I had recently moved into a new apartment
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    that overlooked my old college campus.
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    And I was telling a friend how much
    I like the view and I mentioned,
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    you know sort of offhandedly at first, I
    said it's so fitting that I live so close
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    to school now because campus always
    felt like home to me anyways.
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    And it was true.
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    As an undergraduate student I
    was very involved on campus.
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    I was the president of my sorority,
    I served on student government,
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    I started the school spirit club,
    school was my life, campus was home.
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    And when I said those words that day it
    just hit me and I thought oh my gosh,
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    if I study higher education then I can work
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    on college campuses forever
    and I'll never have to leave.
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    So I did and here I am.
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    I talk about that story, you know, that
    moment often when explaining to people why I'm
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    so passionate about higher education or
    why I like working with college students,
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    but there's a part of the
    story that I usually leave out.
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    And that is exactly why college felt like
    home to me back then and it wasn't just
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    because of friends or student organizations,
    it was because for a period during
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    that time I didn't really have
    anywhere else to call home.
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    I was homeless.
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    And it turns out I was not the only one.
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    It's estimated that there are upwards
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    of 58,000 homeless students on
    college campuses nationwide.
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    And this is likely a low estimate.
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    A more recent study of community college
    students found that 14 percent were homeless
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    and half, 50 percent, were
    experiencing housing insecurity.
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    I became a part of this statistic after the
    economy crashed in 2008 and I lost my job.
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    Shortly after my car was repossessed.
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    I was evicted from two different apartments and
    I had failed four semesters worth of classes.
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    My life was in a constant state of upheaval
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    but through all this I kept
    just trying to go to school.
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    It never even occurred to me to take a break.
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    And plus I don't want to drop out of school.
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    Being a student was my entire life.
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    I identified as being a student.
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    I never identified as being homeless.
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    Since then I've become very passionate
    about helping at risk students succeed.
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    And after working with this population for
    several years now I'm realizing more and more
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    that homelessness truly is a hidden
    problem, especially among college students.
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    And this is largely due to misconceptions that
    we have about homelessness that make it hard
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    for us to accept that this
    problem can happen to students.
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    Prior to working in this
    field I had misconceptions
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    about what homelessness looked like.
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    I bet that everyone here has a very
    specific stereotype that comes to mind
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    when I say the word homeless, right?
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    This is what I looked like when I was homeless.
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    It doesn't really fit the stereotype, does it?
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    Most of our students won't.
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    There are different definitions of homelessness
    that range from people living in shelters
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    or sleeping in their cars to
    those facing eviction or people
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    that are couch surfing like I was.
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    Most students aren't even aware that what
    they're experiencing is homelessness.
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    And even if they were no student wants
    to be labeled as homeless anyways.
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    Students just want to fit in and they will try
    their hardest to keep their situation hidden.
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    Another mistake we make is that we assume that
    students have some level of family privilege.
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    So we assume that students
    have families and parents
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    and those families are safe and stable, loving.
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    We assume that families are able
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    to provide financial support including
    housing to the student, if needed.
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    So you know how can a student be homeless?
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    Can't they just move back home?
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    Unfortunately that's not the
    reality of a lot of our students.
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    It definitely was not my reality.
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    Sometimes there are no parents, no
    family, or the family may be unable
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    or unwilling to provide support of any kind.
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    There might not be a childhood
    or family home to return to.
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    In my situation, although I was
    occasionally able to crash at my dad's place,
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    his living situation wasn't safe or stable.
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    So it wasn't really an option for me.
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    I was lucky of the fact that I
    pretty much always had a place
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    to sleep even if it was inconsistent.
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    But all the instability still
    had a huge effect on every aspect
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    of my life, especially my academics.
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    Before all this started happening
    I was a Dean's list student.
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    This is hardly scientific evidence
    because this is just based on my GPA
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    but one would not be wrong to assume
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    that being homeless may have negatively
    impacted my grades, it probably did.
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    But unfortunately we don't know how
    this problem affects other students
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    because we have very little
    data on this subject.
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    We haven't done a good job of identifying
    homeless students, giving them support
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    and resources and tracking their progress
    through college, even when we've known
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    that we have homeless students on our campuses.
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    Just recently EMU made national
    news when it was discovered
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    that a student was sleeping in
    his car and in this library.
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    People seemed shocked that such a big problem
    could be going on seemingly unnoticed.
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    But when you don't have any data it's really
    hard to prove that a problem even exist.
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    But it does exist.
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    Let me tell you it is really hard
    to focus on school if you don't know
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    where you're going to sleep that night.
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    I recently attended a lecture on housing and
    the speaker said something that really stuck
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    with me, he said without stable
    housing everything else falls apart.
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    Students cannot learn if their
    basic needs are not being met.
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    And we cannot help them achieve
    success until we are willing to admit
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    that homelessness is a problem on our campuses.
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    And it is a problem but it is not one
    that colleges need to solve alone.
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    In fact this is a great opportunity for colleges
    to collaborate with community organizations
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    that are already doing this type of work.
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    EMU, Washtenaw community college and Ozone
    House recently launched the MORE program
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    which places support for homeless students from
    Ozone house right on those college campuses.
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    And our new millennial Ozone Board is
    going to be doing outreach in the community
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    and on campuses raising awareness and
    helping to connect students to resources.
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    These are just a couple of examples
    of what this collaboration is looking
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    like right here in our community.
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    And now that all of you are aware
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    of this problem you can also
    help be a part of our solution.
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    And there'll be lots of ways for you to
    continue to help moving forward, don't worry.
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    But for now an easy way to start is simply
    by rejecting stereotypes and misconceptions
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    that you may have had about homelessness.
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    And instead acknowledging
    that this problem exists.
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    For far too long homeless students
    have been hidden on our campuses
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    and they deserve an opportunity to
    succeed in college and I believe
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    that if we continue working together
    we can give our students, all students,
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    the opportunity to achieve success.
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    Thank you.
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    [ Applause ]
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    Thank you.
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    [applause]
Title:
The Hidden Homeless on College Campuses | Shawntae Harris | TEDxYDL
Description:

In 2016, a real news story about a homeless student at EMU surprised many, but he isn’t the only one. Shawntae Harris helps homeless college students achieve their goals through community support systems including Ozone House programs. Shawntae tells a compelling story of how and why she came to work with homeless college students.

When I was a senior in college, I was one of the 58,000 students that experiences collegiate homelessness annually. I had been living independently since I was 18 and worked to support myself. When the economy crashed in 2008, I lost my job. Shortly after, I lost my car and my apartment. I “couch-surfed” for several months while I searched for work. Towards the end of 2009, I found work as a youth care specialist at a teen runaway and homeless shelter in Flint. When I moved to Ypsilanti to attend Graduate School at EMU, I immediately sought out a way to volunteer with the Ozone House. Now, I serve as the Co-Chair of the MOB (Millennial Ozone House Board), overseeing Community Awareness operations for our group. I also work for both EMU and WCC and work closely with the offices on each campus that are involved with the MORE program.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
08:12

English subtitles

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