Particpants camp in boxes for the night

A cardboard fortress stands in the shadow of Lord Beaverbrook’s statue in downtown Fredericton.

Next lot over, a makeshift boat-home sails nowhere in the cool, October breeze.

Modestly built cardboard homes filled Officer’s Square Saturday night, for 12 Hours for the Homeless. The event, put on through local group Youth in Transition, is meant to raise awareness about homelessness in the province’s capital.

The non-profit organization also uses the event as a fundraiser for their teen women shelter, Chrysalis House. Running from 6pm until 6am, teams gathered pledges and were expected to stay the night to get a sense of what it is like to live on the streets.

Reality and satire however are mixed under the revolving colored light above the DJ, where participants crowd on stage to dance and sing bad karaoke.

Does the event give a real indication of homeless living or is it just a future parody of a city filled with out of work arts students?

There are even heated bathrooms in the square, and one of the sinks clogged with vomit.

Sarah Caissie, Interim Executive Director of YiT and coordinator of the event is aware of the criticisms usually leveled at the fundraiser.

“We’re not fooling ourselves, it’s not an authentic representation,” she said as the DJ equipment is packed up behind her. “To get this kind of enthusiasm you have to make it fun.”

Her work, which began in July, is validated by the success of the fundraiser.

Without counting outstanding pledges, which she expects to come in by months end, $14,400 was raised, exceeding last year’s total of $13,000.

The money was raised through collected pledges by registered teams, similar to fundraisers like Relay for Life.

Open to participants city wide, the event was represented by teams from middle school straight through to St. Thomas.

Team Social Work from STU talked openly about plans to pirate the neighboring Venturers team boat-house, and the event.

“We’re cold and uncomfortable and we’ve had weeks to prepare,” said Mare Spence, who was participating for the second year in a row. “Most homeless don’t have that time or what we have.”

A portion of the money raised will go to Chrysalis house, a home that supports at-risk teenage girls between the ages of 16 – 19 years old.

Without other programs of its kind in the area, it helps a specific group of those in need.

“It’s not representative of the whole group,” says Rogan Swift, who has supported the event for many years but had no home amongst the cardboard boxes.

The rest of the group he speaks of are the people who began to appear on the street at 5 a.m., heralded by rickety cart wheels.

The homeless.

They dig through the garbage cans along Queen Street, picking out cans and bundles of paper.

They hardly cast even a curious look at Officer’s Square.

It’s this group that Joy Burrows, a first-year participant, sees on night shifts at the emergency room. They arrive with winter on cold nights in the waiting room.

They complain of symptoms that usually disappear before the day shift arrives, she says.

“I tell them it will be a long wait, even if its not busy,” she says, “but they’re OK with that. They just come in to get out of the cold.

It’s a wonder why these people, addicted, out-of-luck or both, are counting cans around Officer’s Square instead of being counted as a target for the solution.

It seems the greatest opportunity it gives to a majority of Fredericton’s homeless is that it’s the only night of the year they can sleep in Officer’s Square without getting kicked out.