A 16-year-old homeless girl and a father who could not find housing to live with his daughters were just two of the situations during a housing simulation on Wednesday.

The Habitat for Humanity sponsored a housing simulation in which participants received different situations that would determine their housing arrangements.

The situations include whether they have children, jobs, education, credit and income.

Ashley Myers, a junior family and consumer sciences major and a member of Habitat for Humanity, said they wanted participants to see what homelessness sometimes looks like.

“It is meant to bring awareness to poverty in general,” Myers said. “These people come in here and be homeless and see what people go through to actually find a decent place to live.”

Kateri Tonyan, the public relations chair for Habitat for Humanity, said participants learned the ways people become homeless.

“They learn that everyday situations can cause (people) to become homeless,” Tonyan said. “Most of these people experience economic situations and lost their homes. It seems to be coming up more lately than in the past.”

Tonyan said in the situation of the 16-year-old girl, the participant was unable to find housing because all the shelters and other forms of housing only allowed people over 18.

“It is eye-opening for her that she can not get into any of these places,” Tonyan said. “Others will get into places.”

Roy Lanham, the director of the Newman Catholic Center and the adviser of Habitat for Humanity, said he thinks this is a good way to see homelessness.

Lanham was unemployed with two children, who he put into the women’s shelter.

“The situation is crap; it’s really hard to find housing,” Lanham said.

Lanham said it shows people what it is like to find housing.

“Sometimes we think it is easy, put down a mortgage and get a house, but it’s not,” Lanham said.

Ashley Merriweather, a freshman psychology major, was 30 years old with two children. Merriweather’s character lived with her mother and her mom’s boyfriend who beat her children.

“I have been denied everywhere,” Merriweather said. “I’ve learned that homeless people obviously have it hard, but it’s a ton harder than we see because what I’ve gone through with her.”

Merriweather said she felt helpless while doing the simulation.

“You feel sometimes like you don’t have anywhere to go, and you feel like you want to give up,” Merriweather said.

Tonyan said being on the street is not something people want to experience.

“You don’t want to be in a homeless situation all your life, you want to find an apartment or house,” Tonyan said.

Each of the housing places had specific qualifications that the applicants had to meet.

Donte Owens, a junior accounting major, was one of the runners of Prestigious Reality, which was more expensive than the others.

Prestigious Reality has two requirements: excellent credit and an income of over $50,000, and they can only accept two people.

“This is really meant to bring awareness to housing around the world,” Owens said. “You can have something as expensive as our table, or you can have something inexpensive like section 8.”

Owens said this simulation shows that being homeless is not confined to an age, race or gender.

“All walks of life can be homeless,” Owens said. “You can have children who are homeless, and you can have people as old as 87 be homeless. People are homeless in every shape and size.”

Kelsey Lucas, a junior family and consumer sciences major, said she played a 35-year-old with a General Education Development and two children.

Lucas said she was lucky and got into women’s shelter, but was denied other places.

“It’s very hard to get into housing; if you don’t have any money you’re screwed,” Lucas said.

Megan McQueen, a sophomore sociology major, said she has had to turn people away in real life.

“Last summer I worked at the Salvation Army, and people would fill out food request or housing request and I had to reject people because they didn’t meet the qualifications,” McQueen said. “It was really hard to tell them we could not help them.”

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.