Class Projects

During the 2025 Winter quarter students in the Advanced Seminar “Caring in a Capitalist Economy” shared meals and conversation with individuals living in their cars. Students collaborated with local churches that host safe parking lots to arrange the dinners. Safe parking lots provide people living in their vehicles a safe place to park that includes access to restrooms and other community resources. CCESL

Community-Engaged Teaching Funds made these meals possible. Their conversations lasted well beyond the meals covering sports to homelessness. The quarter began with students connecting with Linda Barringer, formerly with Colorado Safe Parking Initiative, who shared insights on homelessness & safe parking in Colorado and the challenges of funding homelessness work. For example, they learned that approximately 1,000 people sleep in their cars every night in the Denver Metro area and that losing a job or difficulty finding work is the top self-reported reason for homelessness.

Living in your vehicle can be an isolating experience. Sharing meals with safe parkers provided conversation, community, and connection. For students, it personalized homelessness and brought to life the economic difficulties built into our economic system and provided an opportunity to engage in caring and empathy.

In addition to connecting with safe parkers, students in the class volunteered for the annual Point-In-Time homeless count, while others developed a resource guide for those living in their vehicles. The course examines the devaluation of caring in the economy and the need to prioritize caring. Joan Tronto in Moral Boundaries defines caring as “a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible.” Bringing safe parkers and students together is one small way of making our community stronger and more caring.