Downtown Phoenix students took to the streets Friday night to raise awareness of homelessness by sleeping outside in “Box City.”

Around 25 students camped outside in the Taylor Place shade garden in boxes from 9 p.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Saturday in order to replicate conditions homeless people face.

Students participating in the event also listened to live acoustic music, heard from speakers about homelessness and discussed the problem and what they could do to improve the situation.

Students for Arizona Public Interest Research Group at the Downtown campus, a student engagement group, hosted the event and provided participating students with boxes to sleep in.

The organization was also accepting clothes and nonperishable food donations for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a charity dedicated to serving homeless and economically disadvantaged people.

PIRG Downtown President Miquette Reardon, who helped organize the event, said the group wanted to inform people about the conditions of the homeless in Arizona.

“Homeless people have to sleep in boxes sometimes outside even if it’s cold,” Reardon said.

Reardon said the current economic crisis is leading to more homelessness, but many people are just experiencing bad luck.

“A lot of it has to do with substance abuse, some of it is mental illness and a lot of it is just really bad luck,” Reardon said. “A lot of people have jobs too, and they still are working their butts off to make ends meet, and they still can’t even support rent.”

Faith Glick, a volunteer from Stand Up for Kids, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping homeless youth, spoke to the students at the event. Glick said that for many, living on the streets is better than living at home.

“Most of these kids are in bad circumstances before they hit the streets,” Glick said. “Something is so bad at home that they decide the streets would be better.”

Glick herself lived on the streets for seven years and said spending the night outside would give the students a better understanding of what it’s like to be homeless. The night outside would also get students away from distractions and allow them to be creative. Glick said homeless people have a lot of time to think.

“They’ll really get a sense of what’s out there and understand why people would want to turn to drugs to numb themselves from the cold and hunger,” Glick said. “They’re also going to get really creative and expand their understanding of everything. In the less than 24 hours that they’re out here, they’re going to unclutter themselves with all the things that distract them.”

Nonprofit management sophomore Joe Pettinato said he attended the Box City all-night campout because he really likes the events PIRG puts on, like their get-out-to-vote campaign earlier this semester.

“It’s a great cause, and I really like the stuff that PIRG normally does,” Pettinato said. “There is a lot more [homelessness] than I anticipated, and it’s very upsetting to see so much just a couple of blocks away from our nice campus, where I go all day to learn about nonprofit management, then walk outside my class and be asked for change is very upsetting.”

Reach the reporter at snrodri2@asu.edu.