Pretending To Be Homeless In Iowa City

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

With rain in the forecast for Friday night's Homeless Awareness Sleep Out at Hope United Methodist Church, organizer Jenny Seylar said she got e-mails from parents all asking the same question:

Are we canceling?

Seylar's answer: absolutely not.

"People can't choose to be homeless," said Seylar, the assistant pastor and youth minister at Coralville's United Methodist Church.

So, with temperatures steadily dropping along with the rain, Seylar joined a group of local students sleeping on tarps and inside oversized boxes in the rain. The sleepout's goal was to make the junior high and high school students from area churches understand just what it's like to be homeless.

Did they let the kids consume cheap alcohol and give them methadone?

Here's something telling from the comments:

I am so sick of hearing about people doing this. I was homeless in Iowa City for over 2 years and slept under Iowa st Bridge. Once i got my head out of my butt and stoped drinking., i relized that i have no pity for the most of the homeless in Iowa City. 99% of the homeless in Iowa City are there because they want to be on the streets. Of these people all of them would rather spend their money (some get from SSDI, begging for it, or going to Labor ready, donating Bio-Test) on drinking and pot. They go to Free lunch and Salvation army for food. They could careless about their life. I relize i sound harsh, but i refuse to help a person who won't help themselves, and just want people to enable their distructive behavior.

The rare people who are trying to get their life together, which is a small percentage. Will do almost anything not to be on the streets and it is very rare to see them, due to they will stay at the shelter house or live with friends.