The Hidden Homeless on College Campuses | Shawntae Harris | TEDxYDL

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

[ Music ]

[applause]

>> Thank you all.

Do you remember the moment when you realized
what you wanted to do with your life?

I do. It was just a couple years back and
I had recently moved into a new apartment

that overlooked my old college campus.

And I was telling a friend how much
I like the view and I mentioned,

you know sort of offhandedly at first, I
said it's so fitting that I live so close

to school now because campus always
felt like home to me anyways.

And it was true.

As an undergraduate student I
was very involved on campus.

I was the president of my sorority,
I served on student government,

I started the school spirit club,
school was my life, campus was home.

And when I said those words that day it
just hit me and I thought oh my gosh,

if I study higher education then I can work

on college campuses forever
and I'll never have to leave.

So I did and here I am.

I talk about that story, you know, that
moment often when explaining to people why I'm

so passionate about higher education or
why I like working with college students,

but there's a part of the
story that I usually leave out.

And that is exactly why college felt like
home to me back then and it wasn't just

because of friends or student organizations,
it was because for a period during

that time I didn't really have
anywhere else to call home.

I was homeless.

And it turns out I was not the only one.

It's estimated that there are upwards

of 58,000 homeless students on
college campuses nationwide.

And this is likely a low estimate.

A more recent study of community college
students found that 14 percent were homeless

and half, 50 percent, were
experiencing housing insecurity.

I became a part of this statistic after the
economy crashed in 2008 and I lost my job.

Shortly after my car was repossessed.

I was evicted from two different apartments and
I had failed four semesters worth of classes.

My life was in a constant state of upheaval

but through all this I kept
just trying to go to school.

It never even occurred to me to take a break.

And plus I don't want to drop out of school.

Being a student was my entire life.

I identified as being a student.

I never identified as being homeless.

Since then I've become very passionate
about helping at risk students succeed.

And after working with this population for
several years now I'm realizing more and more

that homelessness truly is a hidden
problem, especially among college students.

And this is largely due to misconceptions that
we have about homelessness that make it hard

for us to accept that this
problem can happen to students.

Prior to working in this
field I had misconceptions

about what homelessness looked like.

I bet that everyone here has a very
specific stereotype that comes to mind

when I say the word homeless, right?

This is what I looked like when I was homeless.

It doesn't really fit the stereotype, does it?

Most of our students won't.

There are different definitions of homelessness
that range from people living in shelters

or sleeping in their cars to
those facing eviction or people

that are couch surfing like I was.

Most students aren't even aware that what
they're experiencing is homelessness.

And even if they were no student wants
to be labeled as homeless anyways.

Students just want to fit in and they will try
their hardest to keep their situation hidden.

Another mistake we make is that we assume that
students have some level of family privilege.

So we assume that students
have families and parents

and those families are safe and stable, loving.

We assume that families are able

to provide financial support including
housing to the student, if needed.

So you know how can a student be homeless?

Can't they just move back home?

Unfortunately that's not the
reality of a lot of our students.

It definitely was not my reality.

Sometimes there are no parents, no
family, or the family may be unable

or unwilling to provide support of any kind.

There might not be a childhood
or family home to return to.

In my situation, although I was
occasionally able to crash at my dad's place,

his living situation wasn't safe or stable.

So it wasn't really an option for me.

I was lucky of the fact that I
pretty much always had a place

to sleep even if it was inconsistent.

But all the instability still
had a huge effect on every aspect

of my life, especially my academics.

Before all this started happening
I was a Dean's list student.

This is hardly scientific evidence
because this is just based on my GPA

but one would not be wrong to assume

that being homeless may have negatively
impacted my grades, it probably did.

But unfortunately we don't know how
this problem affects other students

because we have very little
data on this subject.

We haven't done a good job of identifying
homeless students, giving them support

and resources and tracking their progress
through college, even when we've known

that we have homeless students on our campuses.

Just recently EMU made national
news when it was discovered

that a student was sleeping in
his car and in this library.

People seemed shocked that such a big problem
could be going on seemingly unnoticed.

But when you don't have any data it's really
hard to prove that a problem even exist.

But it does exist.

Let me tell you it is really hard
to focus on school if you don't know

where you're going to sleep that night.

I recently attended a lecture on housing and
the speaker said something that really stuck

with me, he said without stable
housing everything else falls apart.

Students cannot learn if their
basic needs are not being met.

And we cannot help them achieve
success until we are willing to admit

that homelessness is a problem on our campuses.

And it is a problem but it is not one
that colleges need to solve alone.

In fact this is a great opportunity for colleges
to collaborate with community organizations

that are already doing this type of work.

EMU, Washtenaw community college and Ozone
House recently launched the MORE program

which places support for homeless students from
Ozone house right on those college campuses.

And our new millennial Ozone Board is
going to be doing outreach in the community

and on campuses raising awareness and
helping to connect students to resources.

These are just a couple of examples
of what this collaboration is looking

like right here in our community.

And now that all of you are aware

of this problem you can also
help be a part of our solution.

And there'll be lots of ways for you to
continue to help moving forward, don't worry.

But for now an easy way to start is simply
by rejecting stereotypes and misconceptions

that you may have had about homelessness.

And instead acknowledging
that this problem exists.

For far too long homeless students
have been hidden on our campuses

and they deserve an opportunity to
succeed in college and I believe

that if we continue working together
we can give our students, all students,

the opportunity to achieve success.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

Thank you.

[applause]