BU students plan 5 days living in car

It's an old-style college contest updated for the Internet age: Two-student teams at eight campuses, including Boston University, will camp out in Chevrolet Aveo subcompact sedans for five days, allowed to leave only for classes and bathroom breaks.

All their activities, showing how much can be done inside the subcompact, will be shown live on the Web, and they'll be vying for online votes.

The BU contestants, Allison Lavey and Jamie Williams, both 20-year-old juniors, were giddy with excitement last evening. Lavey said 95 percent of people would have refused to take part in the challenge.

"But we're that minority 5 percent that when someone asks us to live in a car for five days, we freak out and think it's the golden opportunity," Lavey said.

The contestants, chosen through online applications and in-person interviews, will be officially named Monday, and the event will begin a week later.

Chevy is aiming for the college market with the "Aveo Livin' Large Challenge," but advocates of the homeless in Boston said yesterday that it's a publicity ploy that makes light of a serious problem. Some people, they said, have no choice but to live in their cars.

The Homeless Empowerment Project says it plans to add a dose of real life by sending homeless people to talk to the students living in the BU car.

"We understand that companies have to market themselves to remain viable, but, to be honest, the ends don't justify the means," said Sam Scott, the advocacy group's executive director. " It gives the sense that they're turning their nose up on people who actually do live in their cars."

Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, derided the promotion as "Homeless Idol."

"I hope they sleep warm and people take care of them, but in addition to Chevrolet selling their cars, they should also be volunteering to help the real homeless who are staying on the floor of Pine Street Inn," Stoops said.

He plans a protest at Howard University in Washington, D.C., another contest campus, along with a letter-writing campaign to Chevrolet. Stoops said students attending the National Student Campaign against Hunger and Homelessness conference next weekend at the University of Southern California, also a contest campus, are expected to protest the promotion, too.

Similar to the Chevy promotion is the "7 days in a Sentra" campaign in which a comedian lived in his new Sentra and documented the experience on the Nissan website.

Chevrolet and the Public Relations Students Society of America, which are collaborating on the promotion, maintain that it is an academic exercise and an opportunity to work on a national marketing campaign.

Travis Parman, product communications manager for Chevrolet, said yesterday that it was a stretch for advocates of the homeless to compare the promotion with the plight of the homeless.

"This was really good-spirited from the beginning," he said.

The promotion grew out of a case study that the public relations society and Chevrolet conducted this year. The eight schools were picked based on the strength of their communications programs and public relations society chapters.

Contestants have been told to stage creative and entertaining activities to draw traffic to the website aveolivinlarge.com and attention to the Aveo, an economy sedan with student-friendly features such as an iPod jack. The team with the most online votes will each win a vehicle, as will their university.

At BU, the car will sit in a secure parking lot facing Commonwealth Avenue and next to the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said Colin Riley, a university spokesman.

Asked about the advocates' concerns, Riley said the contest is "a worthy endeavor for these students, who are public relations people and will be working in the industry."

Paul Rice -- editor of Spare Change News, published by the Homeless Empowerment Project -- stressed that the organization wasn't protesting the event as much as trying to raise awareness.

Scott said there is a trend to exploit homelessness in the media, such as the "Bumfights" videos in which homeless people are offered incentives such as money and alcohol to perform violent stunts.

Stoops said he hoped students wouldn't leave the exercise thinking that the community would rally around someone whose car is their home.

"The bottom line, the young people living in the car, their needs are going to be exceeded," he said. "I can tell you that's not going to happen to the real homeless population."

April Simpson can be reached at asimpson@globe.com.