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COLD COMFORT FOR MOUNT ROYAL COLLEGE STUDENTS By her own admission Annick Perrault has led a very sheltered life. The 23-year-old grew up in a small Alberta town of 250, where she was raised in a middle-class, professional home with both her parents working steady jobs. She has never wanted for anything. In mid-October, Perrault became homeless. But unlike Calgary's 2,600 people currently living on the streets, Perrault's experience without a home lasted for just three days and two of last month's coldest nights. Along with 33 other Mount Royal College child and youth studies students, Perrault got a real-life lesson about life on the streets. The three-day experience — which saw students lining up for food at the Mustard Seed Street Ministry, sleeping in the basement of Central United Church and trying to access social services without an address or phone number for call backs — was a course requirement for the Youth and Child Studies program at the college. The rules: No cellphones; wear enough clothes to keep warm; no showering; carry only $10 for the three days; and replicate the homeless life as closely as possible. The students stood in line for meals, walked the streets, volunteered their time doing odd jobs at the Seed and tried to access social services after adopting fake personas. “It's really about creating that same type of experience,” says Barb Henning, program co-ordinator at the Mustard Seed. The experience often leaves students emotional and feeling selfish, Henning explains. Guilt can come at meal times, when the faking-it homeless are in line for food with the truly homeless. The class also intended to pick warm clothes from the Seed's store to use during the reality field trip but with reserves low on coats, jackets, mitts, scarves and tuques, the students wear their clothes from home. At discussion groups, the students listen to stories from the street, told by the homeless at the Seed. It is the combination of the experiences that makes the students more understanding of homelessness, poverty and other social issues, Henning says. And at the end of the experience, many find themselves wanting to go home and hug their families, she says. While the experience was powerful, the “homeless” students go in knowing they have an escape — their experience will end in 72 hours. “This is not our reality. We have homes to go to. We have warmth. We have food, but for these people, this is their lives,” says Christine Delacruz, 21. But life on the streets is just one bad decision or one accident away, another student realizes. “We could be any one of them at any time,” adds 22-year-old Alison Wilton. “The dividing line between having it all and being here on the streets is so small and so tenuous,” agrees instructor Dawne Clark, the head of the Child and Youth Studies program at the college on Day 2 of the Oct. 20, 21, and 22 experience. The Mount Royal class isn't the first group of students to take the homeless field trip. The Mustard Seed started school programs two years ago. Today, teen groups, students from the University of Calgary's sociology department, local Bible colleges and now the college have brought classes down to the centre. “It was really about a strong desire to help people understand the issue of homelessness,” says Henning of the motivation to start the program. “We should educate the next generation and we have a responsibility to tell the stories of the homeless,” she says. In addition to living the street life, the students also attended workshops and discussions led by social services workers and the homeless themselves to learn more about prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty and mental health — issues often associated with homelessness. Just talking to people at the Mustard Seed was an education, adds another student. “People think homeless and they think they're all bums and they don't want jobs. That's not the reality,” says Dustan Byrnes, 20. “We think they're a different class but they're not. They're just like you and me.” Meanwhile, for Annick Perrault, the experience was plainly written on her face. A tear-stained Perrault admits she first refused to join in the experience and wanted nothing to do with first-hand homelessness. “I didn't want to come here, but here I am,” says the 23-year-old. “I've learned that I am a selfish person. “I have everything and they have nothing.”
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