Homeless on the rock

Students campaign to raise awareness about homeless youth in St. John’s

By Kenny Sharpe

Several college students from St. John’s are about to embark on a five-day campaign to increase awareness about the issue of youth homelessness in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Sleep Out 120 is a five-day, 120-hour long campaign beginning on April 5. Nine students from Eastern College in St. John’s will spend five nights sleeping and living on the streets, networking with the familiar faces around the city who call the streets their home, and gathering their stories. While organizers say the state of youth care in the province is in good standing, more needs to be done about emergency shelters.

According to the campaign release, there are roughly 1,200 individuals who are considered to be homeless in St. John’s alone, with one in seven shelter users across Canada being under the age of 18.

The release states that homeless youth suffer more from lack of educational opportunities, developmental delays, and incomplete immunizations than their peers in stable housing situations. In addition, they also deal with a greater number of sexually transmitted infections, mental health problems, and teenage pregnancies.

Blair Trainor is studying child and youth care at Eastern College. He is the campaign leader of the event and will be one of the nine who will spend five days exposed to the elements in April.

Trainor believes that while the number of homeless youth and persons will never be eliminated from society, it can be lessened, and that early prevention of homelessness is the key.

He attributes the number of homeless youth in the province to the rapid change in social standards among them.

“In grade seven now, there is crystal meth. It is not just weed, cigarettes, and alcohol. Young people are being introduced to drugs at an earlier age, and they are becoming addicted at an earlier age,” Trainor said. “If they have a foreseen mental illness, and they get hooked on a drug, then they never get that mental illness dealt with.”

Trainor works at Emmanuel House in St. John’s, a community house installed in 1979 to provide women and men with counselling services pertaining to their social and economic situations. He says the idea for Sleep Out 120 came from similar initiatives across the country. He’s been working on the campaign since last summer.

When Trainor and his peers live on the streets this April, they will only be permitted to have a sleeping bag, pillow, water bottle, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, a single change of clothes, and a journal.

Trainor says that food and drinks will only be available to participants of the program through direct donation from strangers.

With a target monetary goal to raise $7,000, strangers can also make donations in marked cans that campaign participants will have with them.

According to Trainor, 100 per cent of all financial donations will go directly to the campaign’s main charity, Choices for Youth, a youth community center in St. John’s.

Trainor hopes that his campaign will make other students recognize the importance of the need to address the issue of homelessness and that others will lend a helping hand in the future.

For more information about Sleep Out 120 or to make a donation, check them out on Facebook or e-mail sleepout120@gmail.com.

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