A disheveled-looking man, apparently homeless, approached two students eating lunch in Memorial Union and asked if they could spare 25 cents. One of the students flashed him a disdainful look as the other one said he paid using his Wiscard, and therefore he had no spare change. As the man shuffled off in his search for cash, one student said, "It's bad enough when they beg outside — why do they have to do it in here?" His friend responded, "I know, like I would give my money to some bum who is just going to spend it on alcohol." These ignorant points of view are very commonplace among the students here, but an adequate knowledge of the plight of the homeless in Madison is much rarer. Once individuals become homeless for whatever reason, they then enter the cycle of poverty. This terrible and exploitative cycle starts when they lose their homes. They need to get a job in order to get homes however, they cannot get jobs without a permanent address or adequate job skills. Without jobs, they have no income and the cycle continues. The Madison community is working to solve the dire problem of homelessness, but the city's programs are underfunded and overwhelmed. One of Madison's best-known homeless resources and shelters is Porchlight Inc., a wonderful organization that provides shelter, advising services and career counseling to the needy and homeless. But Porchlight Inc. and the other nonprofits of Madison can only do so much on their own. On Porchlight, Inc.'s homepage, it says that in order for a person to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment here in Madison, they would have to be making $13.77 an hour. Seeing as I — an upper-middle-class, white, female, college sophomore — cannot get a job after searching for a month straight, imagine how hard it is for a homeless person to get one, much less one that pays $13.77 an hour. As for the University of Wisconsin, we currently have two student groups, out of hundreds, fighting for the homeless of Madison. The Wisconsin Union Directorate's Community Service Committee homeless subcommittee and Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group Hunger and Homelessness campaign are the two organizations on campus dedicated to this problem in Madison. However, because of the limited resources at their disposal, these two groups' progress is anything but substantial. As a former member the of WISPIRG's hunger and homelessness campaign, I am sad to report that it is by far the most neglected committee out of all of WISPIRG's seven campaigns. We had four members and practically no budget. Even though we were asked to help on all of the other campaigns, when it came time for National Hunger and Homeless Week, only two other WISPIRG members showed up. This leaves the homeless issue up to Community Service Committee's homeless subcommittee, which last year had only four members. Nick Burtan, a UW sophomore who is currently heading the homelessness subcommittee, said "We have a bigger budget than time, people or resources to put in the contribution that we would like to the homeless demographic of Madison." Since the city and campus are not able to completely solve the homeless problem, the burden then falls upon you and me. Returning to the conversation I overheard in Memorial Union between two students at lunch, I will defend their prejudice behavior as a mixture of discomfort and ignorance. Unfortunately, I do not see this article solving all the ignorance and stigmas surrounding the homeless, so I will focus on trying to make people less uncomfortable when around the homeless. The panhandlers are there for money. If you are uncomfortable giving money because you are unsure of how they will spend it, as there are many substance abusers living on the streets, you can still help the homeless on your own terms. For example, I carry around power bars or healthy prepackaged food to give to the panhandlers instead of spare change. This cuts out the guessing game of what they will or will not do with the money and guarantees that that they will have something healthy to eat that day. Buying a simple sandwich for a homeless person could provide him or her with more nutrients than he or she would normally get all week. The obvious question here is "Why go to all this trouble to help the homeless?" My answer is "Why not? After all, they are people too." As a campus, we are usually very politically aware. We have the College Democrats, Republicans and Socialists; we are rallying for help in Darfur and working to get our preferred presidential candidate elected. These causes are all vitally important, and I am proud to be a student at a university with such a progressive student body, but I urge all of you to look at our own campus. We have a crisis right here on State Street. If you do not want to volunteer, give money. If not money, give food. And if you do not want to give food, at least give the homeless of Madison a little compassion. Danielle Werder ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in social welfare and political science.