Poverty affects a lot of people in this country, yet there seems to be this mentality that it couldn’t ever happen to you. I know that when I walk through the city and see all of the homeless, I’m never afraid that that could one day be me because obviously, if you make good choices and do the right things, you could never become homeless. Right?
Not really. Homelessness isn’t something that happens to those who make poor life choices. It could happen to anyone. The Urban Ministries of Durham created a game called Spent that was designed to challenge the way people think about homelessness. The player starts by losing their job, their home, and all of their savings except for their last $1,000. The challenge is to last a month.
http://playspent.org/
I played the game three times before I finally got through the month successfully, and I realized that even though I finished the month with $272, the next month’s rent (of $759) would be due the next day. If I was actually in this situation, I wouldn’t have a feeling of accomplishment. The game wouldn’t be over.
As a student, the idea of living in this kind of poverty after school isn’t a completely foreign one. The pressure of finding a job to be able to pay back mass amounts of student loans is great and finding a job isn’t easy. In fact, in this economic situation, the default rate on student loans is extremely high, and it has been one factor that helped spark protests around the country like the one on Wall Street right now.
Play the game. Can you last a month in this situation?
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