When reading the Picture the Homeless report on Homelessness and real estate speculation, I was very inspired by the sleep outs. “Sleep outs” is the name of PTH’s public education demonstrations. In these instances, individuals actually slept on the streets in front of abandoned buildings. They also engaged the community in conversation about homelessness, gentrification, and vacancies. How cool would it look like to perhaps stage another sleep out to do a public education piece for City College. Recently, the unknown number of homeless CCNY students was brought to attention on the CCNY Secrets Facebook page. In order to bring the issue of homelessness back to home base, it would be quite the movement to stage a sleep out on the front steps of our college.

Like Morris Justice, knowledge can only be valid if it has impact on people’s lives. The key phrase here is people. A lot of the time, policy often removes the human impact in its strive to achieve its economic or political goals. What I really liked about the Morris Justice explanation of valid knowledge was the fact it created room for different voices to express their different or similar experiences. Valid knowledge is, “produced only in collaboration and in action, and that those typically “studied” should be architects of the process”.

The public engagement of sleeping on the streets is a compelling way of gathering that type of valid knowledge. Especially if the issue is unknown to the majority of individuals. At that point, it’s a perfect opportunity to explore why there was a information blackout. How does the denial and access of information inform the citizen as they make their political choices? Participatory Action Research is a wonderful method of uncovering the layers of a complex issue, generating a scenario, and then not proposing a reductivist solution.