Dear Alex Legreros,

I am a student in the Politics of Homelessness FTS with Professor Richard Leitch. I read the article that you wrote about the Homeless Sleep-out, and I found it very biased. Many assumptions were made without asking any of us how we felt about the sleep-out. We did not confuse one week of sleeping out with what homeless go through on a daily basis, but we hoped that it would raise awareness and stir up conversation about homelessness.

You mentioned that the people doing the sleep-out were white privileged students, and that was a rude generalization of Gustavus students. Not all students in the class are white or especially privileged. There was a girl who took this class in 2006 who was homeless and lived at Sharing and Caring Hands prior to college. She may have been white, but she was not a “white privileged” girl who couldn’t imagine the plight of the homeless. To make such an assumption was not very respectful and was inaccurate.

In your article you said that we didn’t have to face being kicked out of buildings like actual homeless people do. This is actually false. Many students got kicked out of buildings at late hours of the night. One student was even asked for identification by campus security because they didn’t believe he was a Gustavus student.

You also said that we weren’t actually being accurate homeless people because we still went to our classes and campus duties, but many homeless people still have to go to school or work. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 19 percent of all homeless people are employed and have to get up and go to jobs. So it actually made it more true to being homeless for us to get up and go to our classes and jobs.

We understand that our sleep-out was not the same as actually being homeless, but it helped give us insight into certain aspects of homelessness. I would’ve appreciated your asking our class about our views on homelessness and the sleep-out before you wrote your article.

Marian Lund ‘14