Advocates for the homeless are upset after students at St. Albans High School were encouraged to dress up as "hobos" last week. "Hobo day" was one of five dress-up days during the school's spirit week leading up to homecoming.
They say school officials could have at least used the event as an opportunity to teach students about the plight of homeless people.
Katelyn Schramm, who is director of Christian education at Christ Church United Methodist in Charleston, said she made a call to Principal Jeff Kelley a few weeks ago and told him of concerns about the day. At the time, she said, signs in the school advertised the event as "drifter," "bum" and "homeless" day. She said she told the principal of her concerns that the event degrades a segment of the population who are less fortunate. She said she suggested to Kelley that if the event couldn't be changed on short notice, school leaders could use the day to raise awareness or money for a local homeless shelter.
Two days later, she said, the solution from the school appeared to be that they changed the wording on the posters to say "hobo" instead of homeless.
"And then [Thursday], the costumes worn and the way it was celebrated, according to the people [who were there] had nothing to do with education and had everything to do with dressing up and trying to appear dirty. So it's disappointing," Schramm said.
In one picture posted to social media and sent to Schramm, a man wears a jacket and bucket hat and pushes a shopping cart filled with things through the school hallways. Another shows two women wearing knit caps and holding a cardboard sign that reads "will teach for food."
School leaders say there is a difference between a homeless person and a "hobo" and that the event was not meant to make fun of people living on the streets.
"I would hope no one would think there was malicious intent," Kelley said. "That's not to the intent of anything during homecoming and if someone perceived it that way, we will try to keep that in mind in the future."
Kelley said students on Thursday dressed in tattered clothes and "things that might be associated with a migrant worker from the late 1800s." Kelley said the school had received only one complaint about the event. That complaint came a few weeks before the event when posters in the school called the dress-up day "homeless" day. The signs were changed to "hobo" day, he said.
"I think our student and staff population understand there's a difference in Thursday's [dress-up day] and what's going on in society with homeless people," Kelley said. "I can understand if they thought it was homeless day and that would be inappropriate, but that was not what the day was called."
Schramm said she doesn't believe anyone at the school was trying to hurt anyone.
"But it's definitely a lack of awareness of the substantial homeless population and how much care our neighbors need in the community," she said.
Ellen Allen, executive director of Covenant House in Charleston, said hobo and homeless person mean the same thing. The school changed the name to "hobo" in an attempt to make it more palatable, she said.
"I think most people think they're the same thing," Allen said. She added that society in general doesn't have respect for homeless people. "There's an acceptance that it's OK to make fun of people and to talk in inappropriate ways [about the homeless] in ways we no longer talk about people of other ethnicities and LGBT people. There's a political correctness that doesn't exist with people of poverty."
Covenant House sees between 120 and 150 people each day at their drop-in center, which offers people a place to wash clothes, shower and to get out of the weather if need be, she said. Not all of them are homeless but many may be right on the edge of homelessness, she said.
Allen said many homeless people have been through trauma that has changed their brains to the point that they cannot simply clean up and get a job.
"This was a real opportunity," she said. "It could have evolved into the discovery about what it means to be homeless and be vulnerable."
She said she was stunned the high school didn't do that, considering that Schramm had brought it to officials' attention weeks ago.
"Changing homeless to hobo didn't quite get it," Allen said.
Reach Lori Kersey at Lori.kersey@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @lorikerseywv on Twitter.