Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990 TAG: 9004060593
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Dressed in a blue turtleneck and jeans, he walked through a group of about 200 students, talking quietly to one group or another. He approached the microphone after a simple introduction: "Here's Mitch."
"We can't allow human beings to live and die on the streets like animals," he yelled to about 200 students who had gathered to hear him speak. A few of the students planned to sleep outside as part a week-long homeless awareness program.
"If somebody is hungry, you feed them," Snyder said. "If someone is naked you clothe them and if somebody doesn't have a home, you give them shelter."
Children are growing up in the backs of cars and under bridges, said Snyder, founder of the Community for Creative Non-Violence in Washington, D.C. "It's going to have a disastrous effect. Those children represent our children."
He said a near disappearance of affordable housing has been the main reason for an increase in the homeless population. "There are going to be more," he said.
The former management-consultant spent four winter months on a heat grate in Washington a few years ago in protest of the housing situation.
He said that during those months, he met people who lived in bathrooms or no rooms at all. "When you view that scene, it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to know something's wrong," he said.
Snyder said he and other advocates are going to make Congress put back $25 billion in budget cuts from programs to help the homeless. "I don't know how. It's going to be a struggle. But it's a piece of cake compared to what needs to happen."
Snyder, 46, urged the students to reach out to homeless people. "Volunteer some time in a soup kitchen. Visit people on the street. Give them a sandwich or a blanket. Before you know it, you'll become a human being again."
Human beings, Snyder said, don't allow children to die.
"If it's not you that does it [helps the homeless], who is it going to be?" he asked. "If not now, when? Time is going to run out. We need to get ourselves together and do what we can, which is a lot."
In a question-and-answer session following the speech, Bill Crawford, a student and cafeteria worker, said the school throws out food that could be used to feed the homeless.
"You ask politely [for the food] and if they say no, you go in and take it," Snyder told him. "You need to sit in offices and pull doors off of hinges if that's what it takes."
Over 50 students approached Crawford after the speech and offered to help him get the food turned over to shelters in Roanoke and the New River Valley.
When the hour-long speech was over, Snyder prepared to spend the night on campus with about 20 other students who had carried sleeping bags and extra clothing to class with them to raise awareness of daily life among the homeless.
"This is just an act of solidarity with people across the country who do this not by choice," said Kevin Stone, a member of the Progressive Student Alliance and an organizer of the event.
But student groups are giving the homeless more than empathy - they raised $600 this week at a benefit for the homeless. The money will be split between the Montgomery County shelter and Justice House in Roanoke, said Stone, who was standing among a cluster of white, wooden crosses that had been planted on the lawn in memory of the homeless who have died from exposure.
Snyder also earned money this week for his shelter back in Washington. His speaking fee of $2,000 will be used to help the Community for Creative Non-Violence. The shelter can house up to about 1,000 people a night, Snyder said.
by CNB