Taking a Closer Look
A tourist once asked me if I ever get out to see the sights of the city. I replied that most of them usually come to me. That ended our discussion rather quickly, with the tourist probably assuming that I meant it as some sort of a snide remark, but I was quite sincere in what I said. The people I encounter in a day’s time are most often far more entertaining than inanimate objects that I could see from a tour bus because they make up the dynamics of what is happening today in the United States.
The world of the homeless is incredibly diverse. It includes persons of various ethnic and national backgrounds as well as persons of varying educational levels. Assuming that every homeless person is poor, uneducated and an ex-criminal or drug addict is very wrong and does not explain the persons from middle-class families with college degrees who found themselves homeless for one reason or another, and there are more such persons around than one might imagine.
One thing that I keep hearing from the groups of volunteers that come to CCNV is the overcoming of negative stereotypes, which is surely an objective for the young people who come to reside at the shelter as volunteers. I know that such negative stereotypes have made it very difficult for me to find a publisher or agent for my novel; the topic of homelessness apparently has negative appeal for most readers, or so the publishers and agents seem to believe, as many shy away from the topic quite readily.
Certainly there’s nothing particularly attractive about being homeless, and nobody in his right mind would choose to be homeless. Yet for those persons who do become homeless, the world of the homeless is filled with paradoxes, and the stereotypes that people associate with homelessness become meaningless rather quickly. Anyone can become homeless, and once a person becomes homeless, it is very difficult to come out of that state; it is virtually impossible to do so without help from some outside source. Whether that source be government assistance or private charity is immaterial as long as the assistance is there and it generates a sufficient change in the person’s life to get the person off the streets.
Insofar as the types of people that become homeless go, however, they can be virtually any type imaginable, as anyone can become homeless. They include doctors and lawyers who have also occupied shelters in the past for significant periods of time, so the assertion that only the undereducated types who are incapable of finding or sustaining employment end up homeless falls flat. If only the people who walk by on the streets would stop and get to know the homeless rather than breeze by them without looking at them, they might be quite surprised at what they would discover.
It was the late Mitch Snyder who said, “The next time you see someone on the street, don’t pass them by. Say hello, ask them how they are doing, get them something to eat. Just tell them that you care. Tell them that they are human beings.” If you stop to pay attention to the homeless people, to get to know them instead of passing by them, you may discover things you never expected. Just remember that the homeless are human beings, too. It really is that simple.
The world of the homeless is incredibly diverse. It includes persons of various ethnic and national backgrounds as well as persons of varying educational levels. Assuming that every homeless person is poor, uneducated and an ex-criminal or drug addict is very wrong and does not explain the persons from middle-class families with college degrees who found themselves homeless for one reason or another, and there are more such persons around than one might imagine.
One thing that I keep hearing from the groups of volunteers that come to CCNV is the overcoming of negative stereotypes, which is surely an objective for the young people who come to reside at the shelter as volunteers. I know that such negative stereotypes have made it very difficult for me to find a publisher or agent for my novel; the topic of homelessness apparently has negative appeal for most readers, or so the publishers and agents seem to believe, as many shy away from the topic quite readily.
Certainly there’s nothing particularly attractive about being homeless, and nobody in his right mind would choose to be homeless. Yet for those persons who do become homeless, the world of the homeless is filled with paradoxes, and the stereotypes that people associate with homelessness become meaningless rather quickly. Anyone can become homeless, and once a person becomes homeless, it is very difficult to come out of that state; it is virtually impossible to do so without help from some outside source. Whether that source be government assistance or private charity is immaterial as long as the assistance is there and it generates a sufficient change in the person’s life to get the person off the streets.
Insofar as the types of people that become homeless go, however, they can be virtually any type imaginable, as anyone can become homeless. They include doctors and lawyers who have also occupied shelters in the past for significant periods of time, so the assertion that only the undereducated types who are incapable of finding or sustaining employment end up homeless falls flat. If only the people who walk by on the streets would stop and get to know the homeless rather than breeze by them without looking at them, they might be quite surprised at what they would discover.
It was the late Mitch Snyder who said, “The next time you see someone on the street, don’t pass them by. Say hello, ask them how they are doing, get them something to eat. Just tell them that you care. Tell them that they are human beings.” If you stop to pay attention to the homeless people, to get to know them instead of passing by them, you may discover things you never expected. Just remember that the homeless are human beings, too. It really is that simple.
posted by MasterWriter at 1:00 p.m.
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