Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Lee Benson Challenge
Posted By Eric S. Peterson on August 25, 2010, 12:35 PM
The Crossroads Urban Center has issued a challenge to the Dnews’ Lee Benson to actually live on the street for 7 days. This in response to his smug column last week where he exposed the reality that “Beggars have choices.”---
If you missed the column, then you missed reading about Benson’s homeless-services safari where he went to various shelters and soup kitchens and decided that there should be no panhandling because there’s a veritable cornucopia of services available. In one case he saw a man at St. Vincent’s kitchen get back in line four times!
To which Benson writes:
“It’s not just a soup kitchen. It’ an all-you-can-eat-soup kitchen.”
I know, I know. Try and swallow your outrage over the fact that some people living on the street might panhandle while possibly having the audacity to get extra servings of shitty food, if it’s available, at a soup kitchen.
Anyways, the folks at the Crossroads Urban Center decided that if Benson thinks life is so easy on the street then he would certainly be willing to actually live on the street for 7 days instead of just smugly investigating homeless individuals lining up for food and shelter. As their blog hilariously challenges:
"Last week Lee Benson drove around town and talked to a couple nice people and then wrote this article about how it is easier being homeless than doing investigative journalism at the Deseret Morning News. We feel he did not do enough research."
They thus challenged Benson to actually try and live on the street for a week without cash, debit or credit cards, a car, and carry only enough belongings that could fit in a backpack. As of yet, it looks like the challenge has not yet been answered despite the Crossroads-Urban Center’s offer to even help with the experiment.
Maybe he’s waiting for a double-dog dare
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