Negative Side Of Homeless People

“On a single night in January 2015, 564,708 people were experiencing homelessness- meaning they were sleeping outside or in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program.” (NATEH) This statistic on homeless people in America is alarming, and absolutely terrible and in our current society, instead of assisting them, our society has learned to set them to the side and ignore the problem, as I used to. Up until recently I had really bad experiences with the homeless. As a child I felt bad when I saw a homeless person and wanted to help with anything I could, but growing up and being exposed to them through work, I seen a negative side of homeless people. I was called names and degraded by a homeless person. I was threatened and made scared

We can simply be going to the store and be stopped at a stop light and see homeless people on the corner with their sign asking for money, or we can be driving by an old bridge and see them huddled near the bride with their makeshift homes. Many of us see it and react in several different ways, most in a negative way, such as to turn a blind eye to it, some look at them with discuss and disdain, some look at them as an embarrassment to their community, and others think their lazy and undeserving of help. These are just a few examples of some response I’ve seen, heard, and personally have done, but is this what Jesus would do? Jesus would not respond with judgment to these people in need but instead humble himself and help them. God not only gave up his only son for our forgiveness of sin, but also put him on Earth to give us a living example on how, we, children of God should conduct ourselves to be able to enter the gates of Heaven. While on Earth, Jesus was the best teacher and gave us several examples and teachings. “The spirit of Jesus penetrates social boxes. He also invites us to see human beings behind the labels of stigma. God’s love overpowers the social customs which divide, separate, and isolate. Jesus reaches out to boxed-up people, tells them God’s love washes away their stigma, and welcomes them

We as people must humble ourselves sometimes and remember that other people are not as fortunate as us and are suffering far more then what some of our minds can even imagine. I have had several bad experiences with the homeless which in turn made me cold towards them and made me ignore them, but recently I got the chance to work directly with our local homeless at the Merced Rescue Mission. I was there all day, and helped with anything and everything I could. This gave me the opportunity to get to know and talk to some of the homeless there, as well as see how they were living, and what their lives consist of, being homeless. I could not believe some of the things I seen. The place they were located in was an old really run down home. There were cockroaches everywhere, literally they had an infestation, and the cockroaches were even in the shelves of donated food. This made horribly sad, all I could think about was how unhealthy that was for them. It made me think of a television report I had watched several years ago where they showed that cockroach infestation was giving poverty stricken people in the Bronx area asthma, and how I didn’t want them to eat a cockroach by accident. I was asked to make thirty sack lunches of peanut butter only that would be handed out that day to the homeless. There I was trying to kill all the cockroaches on the