America! - Home of Millionaires and Homeless

America! - Home of Millionaires and Homeless

If you've been to San Francisco lately, then you know homelessness is a big problem. It's impossible to go anywhere in the city without being confronted by panhandlers and other people living in exile. More and more common is the frowzy vagabond with the sign "Homeless. Will work for food. God Bless." Even outside urban communities, this has become a common sight at busy intersections and freeway off-ramps. I'm not trying to say homelessness is a newly emerging problem in our society. I'm sure homeless people have been around since the Pilgrims left Europe in search of religious freedom. However, the situation has escalated to such a degree in the last ten years that it's obviously now a chronic problem that our government is trying to write off. Ironically, as the number of homeless families increase across our beloved country, so do corporate profits. Driving right past the beggar on the street corner are sixty thousand dollar automobiles with passengers too busy to stop and throw out a dollar to help feed a hungry American with no place to live. Something is very wrong with that picture.

I once had the misfortune of being stranded in San Francisco in the middle of the night. My car was stolen, I had no money and no one to call. I went to an all-night restaurant to escape the cold and sat on a couch in the lobby to think about what I was going to do. After about thirty minutes, I was approached by a squalid gentleman who asked if I needed a place to stay. A little hesitant, I shrugged my shoulders and nodded. We walked a couple blocks to a shelter for homeless people. My guide said his name was Evan, and the place we were going wasn't exactly the Hilton, but it was safe. It was an empty government building in the Civic Center area. The smell was horrendous; a mixture of BO, bad breath and urine. The sleeping area was a bare room, no furniture, with literally hundreds of people sleeping on the floor. I didn't think I was going to be able to stay because of the loud snoring and bad smell of the other occupants. Evan sensed my discomfort and began to tell me a story about how he came to be homeless. He had worked as a long distance operator at AT&T for several years.