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Tuesday, March 19
The Indiana Daily Student

Students raise funds for low-barrier shelter

Clusters of IU social work students sat around the house at 1127 E. Atwater St., working on projects and studying for end-of-the-year tests Sunday afternoon.

They were participating in the Social Work Student Association’s annual Study-a-thon to raise money and awareness for the Ubuntu homeless shelter in Bloomington. Ubuntu is what the Association is hoping will become the first year-round, low-barrier homeless shelter in Bloomington. Currently, such shelters are rare and close after winter.

The SWSA is working with Ubuntu, a coalition of students and others in the community — some with jobs and some without — to start a low-barrier shelter for the homeless during the summer months.

“Hopefully it eventually transitions to year-round, but we have to focus on immediate aid right now,”social work student Stephanie Waller said. “Since April 1, when Interfaith Winter Shelter closed, there isn’t a homeless shelter, so people are sleeping wherever they can sleep, and it’s not a good situation.”

From April through November, there are no low-barrier shelters for people experiencing homelessness in the Bloomington community, Waller said.

Waller said although they can’t raise enough money to buy a building, they are doing as much as they can. She said they are looking into getting waterproof sleeping bags.

Aside from raising money and collecting monetary donations, many have donated other supplies and clothing. Students raised money through pledges their friends and family members sponsored — they would pledge a certain amount of money for every hour the student studied.

“We just got involved in it because we happened to be social work students (who cared) when not a lot of people initially cared about what was happening,” social work student Sarah Dora said.

About a year and a half ago, a graduate from the School of Social Work started the Ubuntu project. Throughout the past couple years, students began to advocate for the
cause and raise awareness for it.

The charity that receives the Study-a-thon funds changes from year to year.
With their involvement in the Ubuntu shelter growing, the SWSA thought it was the perfect cause for this year’s event.

“We had planned to do it earlier, and then when students really started getting involved and invested in shelters and people who are homeless, we just thought that would be a natural tie-in to have it now,” said Bruce McCallister, SWSA adviser and lecturer in the School of Social Work.

About 25 students were in and out of the study session, which lasted from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

Several local businesses, such as Orange Leaf, Noodles and Co., Chipotle, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, donated food to the event. Social work student Madinah Luqmaan said any leftovers would go to people in the community who needed it.

Junior Megan Potter said this cause ties into the larger mission of the school.

“One of our values is social justice, and we believe as a whole that the lack of summer shelter for the homeless people in the community that we live in is an injustice to them,” she said. “The fact that there are so many barriers to prevent that from happening is disheartening and goes against a lot of our core values.”

Potter said so many homeless people here are unable to prove they are citizens of Monroe County. Building a low-barrier shelter would eliminate that problem and several others.

The shelter would benefit more than 60 people who need a place to sleep at night.
McCallister said talking about an issue is one thing, but it’s another to actually make a change.

“To be around this enthusiasm and the sense that they can accomplish things, it’s just really refreshing to be around that sense of optimism,” he said. “The idea that you can’t just complain about something but you can actually go out and try to do something about it.”

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