These people are homeless, but you don’t need to be scared of them.
They’re not evil, not all of them are addicted to anything, some of them have never committed a crime. They’re not sociopaths or maniacal raging lunatics, but they’re homeless and attempting to make ends meet, and many that are homeless have not lost their faith in God, in fact, they’re strong survivors, and these people are more motivated than most to make things better for themselves.
Some of these people were once professionals and productive, some are army veterans, some have been diagnosed with bipolar, and some have messed themselves up but all they can do is try again, but we’re all humans, it doesn’t matter if you’re homeless or not, if you’re homosexual or you’re straight, if you’re black or you’re white, we’re all humans, they’re not garbage.
They strive to survive every day, and everyone out there is just one paycheck from being on the streets. Anybody can be homeless any moment of the time, through a natural catastrophe, through a breakup, through abuse, through anything that you can fundamentally think of, any situation that life brings us.
People don’t even have to give them money, just a friendly gesture will do, a “Hello, how are you?” That makes anyone’s day. If you pass them on the street simply show a little reverence and they will show you respect back, they don’t want to be unkind to anyone, but it really helps them to know that they’re still part of a community and that people care.
Money doesn’t define being a human being. They’re homeless but they’re still a human being, and to those who say that the homeless should just get a job, well, many homeless people only have a school education, so most positions that are open to them are only minimum wage jobs.
The minimum wage in the United Kingdom is:
Workers aged 21-24 to increase from £7.38 to £7.70 per hour
Workers aged 18-20 to increase from £5.90 to £6.15
Workers aged 16 and 17 to increase from £4.20 to £4.35
Apprentices aged under 19 or in the first year of their apprenticeship to increase from £3.70 to £3.90
Most apartments require at least the first month’s rent, plus substantial security, and most homeless people tend to be around towns, so the rent is probably going to be extremely costly, so saving up enough money for the first month’s rent, plus deposit is extremely hard.
And don’t forget homeless people don’t have good credit, don’t have chattels, don’t have clothes to wear for an interview, don’t have a vehicle, don’t have a place to shower, don’t have a place to clean their clothes, and don’t have a place to get a good nights sleep, so it’s not as easy as saying, “just get a job”, and some of the kindest human beings I’ve met are homeless.
These are human beings who’ve not been given the opportunity to rise up when they fall, and we all need to let the powers that be know that it’s not right. These people on the streets know the struggle and it’s real, and this is a genuinely important matter, and being without a home shouldn’t give others the license to be cruel or without empathy for these people.
These people that arbitrate should wander a mile in their shoes before they criticise or announce retribution upon the homeless.
Anyone can become homeless under difficult situations, but the government should be taking care of their homeless people because they’re just human beings with emotions and feelings just like everyone else, and instead of the government seeking to do something positive, they just force them out onto the streets, and there are very few shelters.
There are bundles of abandoned buildings out there waiting to be fixed, some never get fixed, so why waste all this space, why not make them into havens for the homeless so that they can at least try to get back on their feet again?
The problem is our society values money and status more than it values life, and our society promotes “dog eat dog, every man for himself”, and we’ve become really detached and unsupportive of one another, and empathy is discriminating in this classist culture.
The real disturbing part is that our government are more prepared to support people in other countries, rather than investing in our homeless, and we need more compassion and understanding, because no one wants to be homeless, it’s just that sometimes life leads us down the wrong path, a path that we don’t foresee, so even a smile can go a long way to making a homeless person’s day, and the sense that they belong, and homeless people all around us shows us the lack of peoples love and respect and understanding of sharing towards another human being, and England needs to take responsibility of its British first.
But a lot of people look down on the homeless as filthy, idle, insane and threatening et cetera, but it’s not about whether they’re criminal or not, it’s about how these people have to struggle, yet others see them as inferior human beings. You wouldn’t even treat your pet like this, so why the need to treat human beings like this?
