By Jeff Brumley
San Antonio youth pastor Gavin Rogers is part of a trend of younger adults expressing a need to experience homelessness in order to better serve the homeless, says Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
Neil Donovan
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Following are excerpts from an interview with Donovan about what is called “plunging,” immersing one’s self into a segment of the population in order to understand it.
Who are plungers, typically?
Usually it’s college students who spend two to three nights with a homeless person. This organization actually has a history of doing plunges. It’s becoming more and more popular especially during alternative spring breaks.
Do you mean that your organization stages them?
Yes. We go out and do a full-length training beforehand. Then every morning, after being out overnight, they come in for a debriefing.
Can anybody do it?
I wouldn’t say it’s for everybody. They have to be mature enough and have enough understanding of themselves to endure the experience and not let their egos go wild.
What do you mean?
Thinking “now I know about homelessness because I have experienced it….” There is no way you can understand what it’s like to be homeless without being homeless.
What do you think of people plunging on their own?
I’m not a big fan of it. It takes a really mature person. But for some people it takes a one-on-one experience over an extended period of time. For Gavin, it took something extraordinary.
What’s the benefit of these kind of experiments?
It’s about charging the next generation with taking on this responsibility of ending homelessness…. It shows them what it’s like to be un-housed, to be someone who needs to be served every night and to be at someone else’s beck and call.
Ending homelessness?
My generation — I’m over 50 — we cared about homelessness, but we didn’t have ending homelessness as a goal. The next generation will end homelessness.