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Community Outreach

Alternative Breaks Immersion Weekends

Bridgeport, CT, Immersion Weekend April 11-13, 2008 (SPRING TRIP)

General Program Information
Issue Focus: Housing
Cost of Trip: $50.00
Student Trip Director(s): Brandon Smith, Trip Director (brandon.smith@uconn.edu)
Acceptance of Applications: August 24, 2007
Application Deadline: February 15, 2008 at 5:00pm
Notification of Participation: February 21, 2008
Trip Leaves: April 11, 2008
Trip Returns: April 13, 2008

** Price may vary with group fundraising projects.

The application deadline has passed.

Habitat and Housing Issues in Bridgeport

With over 13 million US households paying over 50% of their total incomes on housing, America faces an often unspoken but truly unacceptable moral crisis. Compounding this is the fact that over 6 million Americans live in households which are inhabited by more people than there are rooms; further, 1 in 7 Americans lives in housing which lacks decent physical infrastructure, like flushing toilets, showers or electricity. To learn more about America’s moral housing crisis, check out some of the statistics which Habitat for Humanity has compiled: http://www.habitat.org/how/stats.aspx

Hurricane Katrina exposed the large-scale poverty conditions in which too many people live in the richest country in the world, and the silver lining in that national disaster was the increased attention which our society’s poor have received. There are many reasons for the unacceptable living conditions in which America’s poor live; wage suppression is one of them. Fortunately, the House of Representatives voted to increase the minimum wage substantially, after 10 years of stagnation, which eroded minimum earners’ purchasing power as inflation grew.

There are, however, many things that we as college students can do to help. Getting physically involved in our communities is one of the best. This spring, Community Outreach will work in coordination with Habitat for Humanity to help build affordable housing in the Bridgeport, CT area. This alternative break weekend will involve hands-on volunteer work, which is a crucial “on-the-ground” contribution to ameliorating our own community’s housing crisis. But because hands-on volunteering is like putting a band-aid over a wound, it is important that another component of our alternative break include education, to help put our observations into context and prepare us for confronting the housing crisis on a broader scale.

Trip Preparation

In preparation for this weekend students will learn about the root causes of poverty and homelessness in America. The group will meet weekly to discuss relevant readings; “do” team building exercises and service with local community groups. These once a week meetings average about an hour and a half and are mandatory for participants of this program.

Trip Description

The group will leave from the Student Union at a designated time late on Friday afternoon. From there they will drive to Bridgeport in Community Outreach vans. The group will stay in Bridgeport for the weekend. The group will prepare and eat all of their meals together.

The group will be helping to build affordable housing on a site in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity. At the site the group will be given an orientation regarding the organization and the activities they will be doing. At the end of each night the group will meet to reflect on the days activities and further discuss problems related to housing issues. This is a drug and alcohol free weekend and we expect the group to stay together at all times.

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