The Associated Students of UNM and Heading Home unveiled on Thursday a new installation aimed at increasing awareness to the plight of homelessness, especially when it affects UNM students.
Dennis Plummer, CEO of Heading Home, announced the SUB installation and partnership between the two entities in their Two Sides to Every Story campaign.
“It takes a conversation in the public imagination, about homelessness, to change hearts and minds,” Plummer said.
He called the installation on campus a “creative project” that will encourage those very conversations across campus.
The installation consists of posters, created by students, that contrast an average college life with a seldom-seen reality: student homelessness.
Placed purposefully across corners in certain parts of the SUB, one side of the posters paint the picture of your average college student — “He goes out on the weekends” — while the opposite side finishes the sentence with a situation that a homeless student would be accustomed to: “...because there is no home to go.”
ASUNM President Kyle Biederwolf said the project can open eyes to the hardships facing students on campus who are homeless.
Biederwolf said “tens of thousands” of students walk through the SUB each day, which is why it was the best location for the installation.
“Every single Lobo has two sides to their story,” Biederwolf said. “We hope that this starts the conversation about homelessness, as a whole, as well as the impact on students that homelessness has.”
Dean of Students Nasha Torrez said she was “overjoyed” when ASUNM wanted to take on this issue.
“We don’t know how many students at UNM are homeless,” she said. “But I know that it’s happening.”
Torrez went on to outline some of the resources available at UNM, including but not limited to: the Lobo food pantry, the Office of the Dean of Students’ short term-loan program and the LoboRESPECT Advocacy Center.
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“I look forward to the opportunity of brainstorming how we can do more collaboration, provide more resources,” she said. “The best student movements are those that happen from the students, not the administration.”
Going forward, Plummer said Heading Home will also be working with the Dean of Students office on a “needs assessment” to find solutions for students experiencing homelessness.
Plummer also acknowledged the efforts of both Biederwolf and ASUNM Communications Director Gabe Gallegos in working to bring the project to the SUB.
Gallegos said the whole project started when he attended a Heading Home press conference back in August, when they installed the inaugural Two Sides to Every Story installation.
“We were immediately so moved,” he said. “This is something that people can look to when they’re going to class and think about homelessness in a different way.”
Gallegos said the installation is just a first step in a larger initiative of connecting students to resources, as well as a stronger connection between Heading Home and UNM.
“That was one of our values,” he said. “We didn’t want to just put these up without doing anything about it. We wanted to follow up and make sure that we were doing our due diligence to actually solve the problem.”
Biederwolf said he hopes, through working with Heading Home and the Dean of Students Office, that they can bring more awareness to this issue.
“Unfortunately, too many of our students suffer homelessness,” he said. “You look at a classmate and assume that they have somewhere to sleep at night; I think that this brings awareness that you can’t always do that.”
Matthew Reisen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MReisen88.
