Yes homelessness is a nationwide problem
Living in Miami we are well aware of it.
However, I should have been a little clearer this individual was on Campus screaming incoherently at students as they were entering and leaving the Union.
He did not act harmless
This seemed to be an acceptable situation for students and staff that were there.
What I mean by that is the students just hurriedly walked by not making eye contact like this regularly happens and staff just kind of ignored the situation from what we saw.
When we left the union after lunch he was gone.
This was our experience.
I guess I walk by people on corners yelling Bible verses enough that volume of the voice isnt enough to scare me. I might not agree with what they are saying but its their vocal cords they are ruining.
First; comparing a street preacher standing on a corner to someone yelling incoherently at students entering and leaving the union are not the same thing
Second; some students looked at the very least uncomfortable as they walked in/out of the union, no eye contact with person, head down and their pace quickened until they were a distance away.
Finally; while you find the behavior I described totally acceptable on campus I do not.
I do not believe any student should have to be subject to this behavior while walking from their dorm or classroom to the student union. So not much else to discus.
This was our experience on the day we visited. When we left the Union after eating at the Diner (good food) he was gone.
I really didn’t want to get into this much detail from original post. This could be an isolated instance, However, after the replies to my original post I thought more details were warranted
We will have to agree to disagree on what is approbate behavior for non students on campus.
I think at bigger universities there are a lot of people on campus who may not belong there like at the OSU Union, but they are public places and it may take a while to get campus police there to remove those who are disturbing students and staff.
We have a large public campus in downtown and it is a never ending job to keep those wanting to camp on campus, out of parking garages, out of the bathrooms in the more public buildings (like the union or bookstore (a little easier for some classroom buildings or the library).
Just mentioning that a whole bunch of small towns have people who aren’t mentally or emotionally whole, and who do sometimes shout incoherently at other people or things.
Please y’all, stop pretending that this is a big city vs. small town issue.
I was surprised to see the number of homeless people in Chapel Hill (in the immediate vicinity of the college) while my daughter was there. Turns out there’s a shelter on an adjacent street to the main drag (Franklin) and the folks that utilize the shelter at night, are turned out during the day. I remember eating lunch at popular (since closed) restaurant on the corner and a women started banging on the window and yelling incoherent things). It also wasn’t unheard of to see people who weren’t college students in “The Pit”, yelling things (and others quoting scriptures from the Bible). The kids didn’t think anything of it.
I’ve have yet to notice anything similar in my visits to see my other daughter at VT or in my walks around downtown Blacksburg (nor has she mentioned any issues on campus), but I’m sure the issue exists there as well. It’s a country-wide epidemic that seems to have amplified since the pandemic. Trying to shield your kids from it, doesn’t make it go away.
While I don’t think that the mere existence of homeless individuals is enough to cross a college off the list, the exceptions may be in cities or towns where encampments have taken over and it’s become a documented safety and health issue.
My D struggled with her tour of OSU back in the day too. There were people shooting up behind the Union where we were parked and we were hit up for money multiple times while walking around campus. It definitely impacted her feeling of safety.
Same thing when we toured Northwestern and our tour guide told us about having his lap stollen from a park bench. (He was trying to highlight how collaborative and supportive his classmates were).
Interestingly she felt plenty safe at JHU. She liked all the visible campus police. Liked all the security checks.
D would also agree that there is something different about someone screaming religious propaganda (there was one regularly at Purdue).
While things can happen anywhere, IMO a student’s perception of safety is a valid reason for schools coming off a list.
It’s definitely not just a city thing. As I mentioned above I saw this in small town Bloomington, IN.
As for my own college experiences, back in the day when I went to CMU I passed a man begging for change every day on my way to and from class. Same with Pitt.
Street preachers can be a menace of a different kind. Way back in the day at LSU, one particular preacher (from a known group) showed up for months at “Free Speech Alley” (which all of us had to pass through to get to class), yelling about our sin. The sin he chose to focus on the most was women’s sin: we were “prostitutes” who were going to hell. My roommate and I finally got sick of it, did our research, and jumped up on the bench next to him to answer him (loudly) with Bible quotes about non-judgment and other good things. So many people had been verbally attacked by him that a huge crowd gathered in support of us. He got scared and ran away, and I never saw him again. Free speech in action!
Portland, Maine has a huge problem with unhoused people, and it’s not a big city - population of 69,000. The small population is being asked to pay increased taxes due to the influx of people.
Thus my point. Sounds like it was taken care of. The point with the preacher is that there is free speech in this country so whether I like or agree with what someone is saying is irrelevant. Street preachers creep me out more than unhoused mentally ill people. We can’t always control what other people do but I simply said that students walking by seemingly unafraid to me means they have experienced this person before and know that he is either harmless or that his presence is brief (either by his choice or school security).
On the topic of unhoused people: My S26 and I recently started volunteering in the cafeteria at St. Anthony’s in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco (most of you will recognize this area from media reports about SF’s homelessness crisis). St. Anthony’s runs several programs for unhoused people in the city. We serve a hot meal to anyone who comes in. Guests may come through the line as often as they wish during the hours of food service, and many circle through a dozen times or more, so we become familiar with many guests and sometimes develop a rapport with them. It has changed the way I see people out and about in the neighborhood.
What I’m taking away from this experience so far is that most of us would like the very obviousness of homelessness to “go somewhere else.” The sights, sounds, smells—it’s a lot. We have met a lot of people who are suffering in ways I know I can’t imagine. I spent many years feeling sad and looking away. Giving money to lovely organizations but not really looking at the complex problems they were trying to solve. But it’s clear to me that we will only solve this problem if each of us feels and acts on the obligation to help take care of each other.
I think my 15 year old said it best, as we were walking back to our car after a recent shift. He recognized a few people we had served, now back at their tents with their friends. He said hi to one of them, and he said hi back. “Mom, this street looks different to me now that I know some people on it.”
Safety is an important topic on a college campus, and I can see why walking past people who are using drugs or asking for money or shouting incoherently can feel threatening. But I also wonder if some empathy for individuals can help open young eyes to a problem that needs all of our help to solve.
I know I rambled on here, so if you read it, thanks
Does anyone have restaurant recommendations in the following areas:
Madison (near U-Wisc- Madison)
Appleton (near Lawrence)
St. Paul - (Near Macalester)
Reminder: This is NOT the place to politicize comments and provoke debate by insulting a political group and denigrating a city. Posts have been hidden, and thus, so have some of the replies to those posts. Any further such posts will result in warnings and/or silencing.
For those who wish to engage in more heated conversations, there is the politics forum. Thanks for your cooperation.
due focaccaria - 3 minutes from Macalester and on the way to/from the airport. Fabulous sandwiches and more for grab and go (or eat in), plus you can order online and specify the time you’re picking them up. We got lunch here after we landed in St. Paul and enjoyed it so much that we took it to go on our way to the airport a few days later.
As this is a meandering thread, I just wanted to say that small towns can have many things…people who are unhoused…but also delicious, cosmopolitan food. A close friend of mine lives in Bloomington and she was talking about how much her family enjoys eating at a Uighur restaurant there. In talking about the restaurant, she mentioned how nice it is that IU has so many different foreign language and area studies programs, because it really shows in the cuisine available around town. There’s now an Azerbaijani restaurant in town in addition to the Afghani one. When asked if there were still two Tibetan restaurants, at first she thought there was now only one, but realized that there is still a second one open. This is, of course, in addition to Thai, Indian, Korean, and other international cuisines that are more commonly found across the U.S.
All that to say, don’t forget to check out the towns when you visit colleges, and don’t write off towns because you think they’re too small. I’d bet that a lot of people who want a “city” experience would be very happy with all the opportunities that are available in Bloomington, and that is undoubtedly true of other locations, too.
I was very impressed with the variety of restaurants in Bloomington. It seemed like the perfect college town, especially how it was seamlessly connected to the campus through the gates.
I have 2 friends who are teaching at IU, both having done stints at a number of other “fancier” schools in desirable locales, and they are loving Bloomington. Both are quite cosmopolitan, having also spent a lot of time abroad, and not people you’d expect to end up in IN.
Affordable and lots of interesting restaurants, interesting people, and things going on. Pretty sure at least one will stay into retirement.
And one had their dad, a retired prof, mistaken for an unhoused person and offered a sandwich, which has ever since been a rallying cry for “you gotta pull yourself together if you’re leaving the house!”
