For most Penn students, the homeless are accepted as a fact of life in West Philadelphia, one of the things seen but not quite registered on a daily basis.
That's why it's gratifying to hear about Penn students' recent outreach efforts to homeless Philadelphia residents. One of the simplest, and most innovative, involves students swiping for an extra take-out meal in the dining halls and the collecting the extra meals for donation to area homeless shelters.
As every freshman discovers sometime around their first round of finals, the number of meals given with each plan is often too high for a campus so dependent on, and donation is an easy and worthwhile solution. The idea has merit and should be encouraged and expanded, and organized so that more students can participate.
While there are legitimate bureaucratic hurdles to preparing a more-organized system whereby students can donate their leftover meals, Penn administrators and students should work together to find a way for students to "recycle" meals into the program at the end of the semester.
The student initiative to construct a homeless shelter near Penn's campus shows promise as well and is the sort of project that connects students with the less-palatable aspects of inner-city living. These sorts of programs introduce students to the many layers of life in West Philadelphia, and they allow students to work with local residents to find solutions to citywide problems. We hope that these two intiatives, and others like them, continue to gain support in the Penn community.
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