Homeless Citizens?

Homeless citizens are often considered a burden, more over, society’s burden. The down-and-out seem, to the average citizen, to be habitually on drugs, or prone to violent behaviour. Should it not be our responsibility to help those who can not help themselves? That is just it, some of the impoverished are living under such appalling conditions that they can not pick themselves up onto their own strength. I have a few questions that I would like the average person to think about regarding the homeless: Why are they on the streets? What can they do about it? Is this society’s dilemma and should society lend a selfless helping hand to clean up the streets? These are just a few questions that I will attempt to give my opinion on and if one does not agree that they may, without prejudice, hear what I have to say. I hope that one would honestly take to heart the value of a human life. People all have a living, breathing soul in need of some sort of ‘fire’ in order to kick-start their life back together.

A man without a home is lost. To wander the streets with no hope is possibly one of the loneliest situations to be in. There are many reasons why a man is homeless. I was chatting with a homeless man once, he told me one of the main reasons he was on the street was due to cocaine use. He lost his family, job and everything he owned due to cocaine. The man did not go into detail about how he became addicted to the drug, or how long he had been on the streets, but just listening to this poor soul talk was depressing. According to him, he hated cocaine, but he could not kick the habit. Selling everything for the next hit is horrible. He never told me his name, but I could see in his eyes a lack of will to live. In his mind, life from that point in time was hopeless. That brief conversation was a totally spontaneous occurrence of a man trying to get some change; I lied and said that I did not have change on me. I could not trust him, I did not want him to use the money for cocaine. That is one reason why this human being and many others are living poorly.

The poverty rate is extremely high in the United States:

In 2000, 11.3% of the U.S. population, or 31.1 million people, lived in poverty (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001). While the number of poor people has ...

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...ty's homeless families. "We have to recognize the costs and failings of our own best intentions," Bloomberg said. "This morning, some 38,000 people -- including 16,000 children -- woke up in city shelters." Bloomberg pledged to reduce the homeless population by two-thirds, and to plow savings back into housing programs. He has earmarked $12 million to seed these programs, but his aides acknowledge the eventual cost will run into tens of millions of dollars. (Powell)

This city has the right idea, and even though we ourselves as one person can not do anything of this magnitude, we can always request and support the city when opportunities like this arise. Aside from these large scale efforts, all we have to do is lend a smile or a small helping hand. Our communities would be safer and more pleasant to be in, if only we took the effort to lend a helping hand. If a normal man was in the ratty old shoes of a poor man for just a day, he would expect no less.