They are so prevalent in our lives, we might as well call them hangovers—except the difference is they don’t belong to or at our school. Like hangovers, they are both unwelcome and a disruption to our studies. And rather than going to places like Panera and Starbucks and finding the cure for this problem, like we do for hangovers, we go to these places and find the problem itself: the homeless.

With all of the endearing nicknames we’ve created for them, you’d think they were our friends. And while some of our friends might mooch off of us for alcohol every now and then, at least they don’t scream at us to “give them a dime,” or, at least, we’d hope not. But, regrettably, that’s more than we can say for “Jacket Guy” and “Bag Lady.”

It is well known that Vandy students seek the convenience and comfort of places like Wendy’s, Starbucks, Panera, Breugger’s and Fido’s. They are the favorite of many looking for a place to study and fuel to get them going, or a place to just hang out and relax. These places are both so close and so commonly used they may as well be a part of our campus, and many of our favorites feel like an extension of our campus with use of The Card.

So why isn’t Vanderbilt doing anything about it'

With all the new changes being made to help improve this campus on all levels, including improving safety and facilitating our studies, this is one problem that is being overlooked.

There are easy ways to help alleviate this issue. For example, Vanderbilt could hire more cops or work with Metro to station guards around student hotspots surrounding campus. This way, when “Jacket Guy” or “Bag Lady” approaches students and aggressively hounds them for money, the security guards or officers would be there to help break it up and eventually discourage these people from continuing this behavior.

If this doesn’t work, perhaps Vanderbilt could take a more active approach and build a homeless shelter. This would help solve the problem of homeless people begging around restaurants and caf'©s near campus. It could also be a great learning experience and opportunity for students to get involved more in community service by working with the homeless.

Recently, freshmen were required to do community service, and now they are required to take a class once a week. Perhaps freshman VUcept groups and other groups like sports teams, fraternities and sororities, and Mayfields could volunteer regularly at the shelter.

I think this would be something that large corporations around Nashville would be happy to assist, but Vanderbilt could take the lead in fundraising initiatives. It would be a great way to start integrating Vanderbilt into the Nashville community more, as Vanderbilt has already said it hopes to do.

Helping solve the homeless problem would definitely be an innovative and responsible approach for Vanderbilt that would garner positive attention. At the very least, we could hope it would lessen the safety alerts and help make going to this school more worry-free knowing we Homcould walk around 21st and West End in peace.

Stephanie Fleischman is a junior in Peabody College.

INSIDEVANDY UPDATE (09/25/06): Former Vanderbilt Hustler columnist Claire Suddath responds in the Nashville Scene's blog.