Homeless at WU
Dear Editor:
Re: “Is WU a Rich Kid School?” [Nov. 15, 2004].
I feel the article merely scraped the surface of a much greater, silent and ignored problem on this campus. While students from low-income families do indeed receive scholarships and loans from the financial aid office, greatly lessening the burdens of tuition and other “necessary” fees, they essentially turn a blind eye to the real necessities-text books, school supplies, food, shelter, and sleep.
For those of us without parents-without family-given just enough financial support to kindle the hope that we might make it through another semester, how do we actually survive?
I have attended Wash U for three years, 10 academic months of which were spent living in my car, not able to afford our hotel-like dormitories. Most members of our prestigious community frequent the AC in order to exercise or socialize, whereas, for me, it was simply a place to bathe-a fantastic use of my outrageous activities fee.
How many of the people asleep in Olin or the study lounges in the dorms aren’t really power-napping? How many of them are even deprived of their “Miserable Sundays,” instead needing to work all weekend, every weekend; just to emerge with unfinished homework, running on borrowed time and borrowed energy? What prescription does the Health Center have for that?
I know I am not alone. The Director of Student Financial Aid reports that 60% of students are on some form of financial aid, but how much of that $51 million is actually going to the students who need it the most: those who have no family, no external support and no credit with which to get a loan?
I think it is time for this community, a community that I am proud to be a part of, to stand up for those here who are less fortunate. Why not run food and clothing drives for the poor and homeless among us? Why not donate your extra points at the end of the year to those of us on campus that can’t afford food? Or are we, as a community, not ready to see past the manicured lawns and granite facades, not ready to see a real student’s life at Wash U?
-Erika Simmons,
Class of 2006
From a student to a housekeeper
Dear Editor:
A couple of responses to my original article have been printed within the past week, and that’s great. The first, by Taylor Guthrie, was simply asinine. I think she was reacting to the article she wished I had written, and she completely missed the part where I wrote, “Surely, not all housekeepers resent students. Even if they did, not all would steal given the opportunity.”
That being said, I’ll instead respond to Draga Orescanin, for whom I have much more respect. First of all, I have to apologize for the title of my article: “Caught red-handed”. It was Student Life’s incendiary choice, and it certainly didn’t capture the spirit of personal privacy I intended.
She asks if all police officers should not be trusted. To answer her question, I will restate the main point of my article: students should have to option to forgo housekeeping services. Specifically, I would like an enforceable way (a standardized sign from ResLife, perhaps) to let housekeepers know that it’s forbidden to enter a student’s room if the student does not invite them in. If a housekeeper can’t legally be in my room when I’m not there, the chance of him or her being caught stealing increases, and accordingly the incentive to steal decreases. If I had my sign up and returned home to find a housekeeper in my room uninvited, I would be as suspicious as any would be if they returned home to find a police officer in your room uninvited.
Orescanin also asks me if I think she is poor. Honestly, I never thought about her specifically until I read your letter. I do think that housekeepers in general make less money and get less respect than people working in many other professions.
But I know that there are lots of worse jobs. One winter I found a job as a minimum wage janitor in a meat processing plant, and a place to sleep on the couch in a complete stranger’s apartment (You know who you are, and to this day I’m very grateful.) I didn’t feel poor. I totally agree that “There are more important things in life than expensive, beautiful things.” But just like anyone else, I would like to keep what belongs to me-expensive or not.
-Craig Pacheco,
Class of 2006
Pacheco sounds snobby
Dear Editor:
Re: “Caught red-handed” [Dec. 1, 2004].
Craig Pacheco acted as if he was going to respect the housekeeping staff by stepping into “a housekeeper’s shoes.” Instead, Pacheco showed incredible disrespect by (1) lumping them into a faceless mass with homogeneous living conditions, goals, and perspective on students and (2) representing these aspects of the housekeepers’ lives negatively.
Attention Pacheco: being a service worker does not make you pitiful.
You think they shouldn’t steal; nobody should steal! Rich folks do it too. Write a column about them.
I agree with him that a lot of folks seem to be rich at Wash U; but this is only a problem if they act snobby and mistreat others. Rich or not, Pacheco sounds like a snob: haughty, ungrateful for the housekeepers’ work, prepared to separate people into groups and label their traits.
Then he asks Student Union (not without rudely questioning SU’s value in the first place) to make housekeepers optional. If Pacheco really wanted SU action, he picked a terrible forum. Not only might SU people simply not see the paper that day, but Pacheco has also reached out to a campus full of students that already don’t appreciate the housekeepers enough, trying to make another point against the staff.
So to the readers who are not strongly for or against advocating for the housekeepers, please do not be swayed by Pacheco’s column. If you’re lucky enough to live in a building that members of the housekeeping staff work in, try to talk to them (which is something Pacheco hasn’t done, evidenced by his stereotypical, uneducated view of what their lives MUST be like).
-Rob Collins,
Class of 2006