Issue date: 4/15/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Jose Arredondo Senior political science major Maritza Valdez and junior molecular and cell biology major Kristen Montgomery participate in a poverty simulation. [Click to enlarge]

Uncomfortable, hungry and tired was how participants of W: Women in Power's 36-hour poverty simulation felt.

The past two years, W has put on poverty demonstrations in Rudder Plaza by living there for three days, only eating food given to them and not changing clothes or showering. This year was the first time the simulation was open to non-organization members. It began Tuesday at 6 p.m. and ended today.

Haley Wren, the executive of membership development and a sophomore special education major, said many times students would stop and express an interest in participating in a similar demonstration, so W expanded to a campus-wide program.

The simulation is designed to give participants a taste of what living below the poverty line in a homeless-state is like and familiarize them with the frustrations, struggles and hardships homeless individuals face on a daily basis.

"People were given a scenario standard to what the Twin City Mission faces on a regular basis and were asked to 'live' out that scenario throughout the course of the demonstration," Wren said.

Students were asked to not purchase any foodstuffs or luxuries during the simulation and were to spend as much of their free time as possible with the SIMS shelter.

"We wanted people to get out of their comfort zones and realize how hard life can be when you are tired, hungry and uncomfortable all the time," Wren said.

The first night left most occupants of SIMS with similar feelings: pain, frustration and hatred toward the cold. Participants were woken up at 7 a.m. to begin their day of homelessness; the temperature at the time was in the low 50s and no one claimed to have had a good night's rest.

"Last night was terrible, I slept terrible; it was cold, my hips hurt and my head hurts and I woke up early," said Karen Johnson, a freshman petroleum engineering major.

Continued...

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