By Montana Samuels | gargoyle@flagler.edu The five-year spike of homeless students enrolling in St. Johns County schools has begun to taper off, but some experts fear the trend won’t last. “I think the numbers can and will go up,” says Kassy Guy-Johanessen, director of development at…
On Washington Street in St. Augustine, men and women sit outside the St. Francis House. They sit close to the things they carry, in fear that they can quickly be taken away.
By Joshua Santos | gargoyle@flagler.edu
It was dark. I didn’t know it was so hard to walk along train tracks, but we followed them under a bridge. I felt intrusive, like walking into someone’s home without knocking. On Labor Day weekend I was in Hollywood, FL, producing an issue of the Homeless Voice with 19 other students as part of a journalism project. We were at the COSAC Foundation homeless shelter, which accepts anyone who needs the help. The shelter also publishes its own newspaper — the second largest homeless newspaper in the country — and we had 36 hours to produce it.
By Shinavia Gore | gargoyle@flagler.edu
Pictures by Shinavia Gore
Seamus, a homeless man in St. Augustine, said he sees himself as a free spirit.
Seamus, who is from Pennsylvania, has been homeless since he was 19 years old. “This year will be 24 years,” he said. “Too long.”
He said he originally became homeless because of his drug addiction to cocaine. “It screwed my life up,” he said.
By Matthew Boyle and Caroline Young | gargoyle@flagler.edu
Graphic illustration by Katie Davis
Video by Shannon Rose Greene
Flagler College’s Students In Free Enterprise team will be hosting Cardboard Campout on the West Lawn on Friday, April 2 to raise awareness and money for its newest project, “Containers for a Cause.”
With “Containers for a Cause,” SIFE plans to build homeless transitional housing facilities from about 15 to 20 old railroad shipping containers. SIFE has already received one 40-foot shipping container, a donation from former St. Augustine mayor George Gardner.