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What do you think of when you hear the world "homelessness?" What goes through your mind when you hear "homeless child dying of malnutrition and no family support?" Homelessness is a serious issue that effects every citizen of society. The sad reality is, a majority of the people who see a homeless person walking down the street with nothing but rags and plastic bag homes on their backs get looked at as if they are mentally ill, or that they deserve to be in such a tragic predicament. In order to understand the homeless and reach out to them, we must first examine and understand exactly where they are coming from. According to the Understanding the Homeless report by A. Jaroszewski, there are three stages of loss that contribute to homelessness. The first stage of loss is the loss of family support. Sometimes family ties are damaged early in life. Weak family relations or ties to a family may make one more susceptible to homelessness. The second stage of loss is the loss of friends. "When family support is weak or absent, individuals turn to friends," the report says. Yet if these friends are unwilling or unable to provide the emotional support necessary, it can further alienate an individual experiencing transition. Time without others takes its toll, isolating individuals who may be in poor physical health and psychologically dysfunctional as a result of a life of chronic hardships. The loss of community support is the third stage of loss contributing to homelessness. "Too often the community support needed for personal survival is unavailable to individuals with no permanent address, no proof of job, or no means of transportation," the report states. Homeless people often do not have a change of clothes, do not have much money, feel that no one cares, and feel ashamed and useless. Also, they are often times hungry, do not have access to proper health or hygiene, and are often involved in drugs and/or alcohol and prostitution. Researchers have reported that there are between 300,000 and 7,000,000 homeless people in America. More young people (under age 21) than ever are homeless. Women with children make up 34%. Children ages 1-18 make up about 15% of the homeless population. Families with children are the fastest growing group of homeless. One child in five in the U.S lives below the poverty line. Many homeless children are alone and homeless, either runaways or throwaways. Most homeless people are victims. Some have suffered from child abuse or violence. Many have lost their jobs after years of employment. All have experienced a great sense of loss. All have lost a place to call home. Something that really concerns me is how homeless children deal with survival in a world that offers them no support and no safety. "Homelessness to me is a feeling of death. There is nowhere to go, no one to see and no one cares. People generally believe you are a bumb and were always meant to live a homeless existence. Besides the feeling of shame and uselessness is the feeling of terror and hunger. Every day I wonder, 'where am I going to get my next scrap of food?' How am I going to manage sleeping out in the rain for yet another night?" "Hunger can turn a person into a madman. When my father lost his job and my mother went insane, I was going through rough times, but I never realized that hunger can bring me so close to acting like a crazy person. When the both of them abandoned me when I was only 15, I did not know where to turn. Now I am scraping the streets trying to keep my sanity. The desire for food takes control of every moral thought of right and wrong, and in most cases I have to steal to survive." "The streets have become my home. I don't want to accept that this is where I am going to be for the rest of my life. I don't have any family and no one to believe in me or support me. I used to be a good student. I remember in 4th grade, my father was so proud when I won third place in the science fair. He never had much time for me, but when he did, he was always proud to see me do well. My father wanted me to be an engineer just like him." "Every day, when I search the trash cans outside of the apartment buildings, I think of the families that ate the food that I am now about to finish for them. How could they throw away the very thing that I desperately depend on to stay alive? I will never understand how people can live their lives and not even think for once that there are people out there starving, dying, struggling, just to get some rice or stale bread in their stomach and that's all the food they'll be eating for 3 days? Why do they look at us as if we like the situation we are in… as if we "asked" to be abandoned and in this world with no one to protect us but ourselves? "I can only pray and ask God, if he is even listening, to spare me at least some food or some type of safe, dry shelter for the night. That's all I ask for. It may not be much to those people rushing by me on a destination far more fortunate and brighter than mine, but it means a whole lot to me. It means everything to me! It means that I will survive just one more day. 'Why,' you may ask? Why keep on going when you have nothing to live for? I will answer that question for you. It is because of hope. Hope is all I have. Hope is what is keeping me alive. And maybe hope will be what will get me out of this alive."  |
